Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension
Critic Score
Based on 37 reviews
2020 Ratings: #136 / 871
Year End Rank: #39
User Score
2020 Rank: #266
Liked by 161 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Irish Times
F Scott Fitzgerald wrote "there are no second acts in American lives", and yet, at the precipice, Stevens leaves us not with dissolution, but resolution, for a second act to believe in. Exceptional.
100
Record Collector

A joyous blend of dumb fun and sonic smarts with the talent that Stevens has been peddling for nearly 20 years to glue them together, this feels a fresh start in a career that didn’t exactly need one. Somehow, a wonderful surprise. Wow.

100
The Arts Desk

The richness and depth of the album calls for repeated and careful listening. Sufjan Stevens is a master of sound who makes its creative manipulation appear so easy.

100
The Independent

Though some might find the odd track a bit noodly, I was rendered wonderfully weightless by a journey that delivered whole galaxies of nuance in a universal context.

100
Exclaim!

It may very well be his most challenging and ambitious undertaking to date as well as a sign of the new era of Stevens to come.

91
Consequence of Sound

The Ascension is one of Sufjan Stevens’ grandest, most ambitious works yet, and that’s quite the feat considering he’s one of the most ambitious musicians in his genre.

90
musicOMH

The Ascension sees him lay down new paths while very much corroborating his special, loved status.

90
Spill Magazine

The Ascension demonstrates a great deal of growth, expansion, and experimentation in Sufjan Stevens’ work.  Not only is it one of his best album–if not his best–it is clearly a contender for Album Of The Year.

90
God Is in the TV

On this album he is sharing a more obscure, richly detailed approach which does an awful lot with a small, focused collection of sounds

90
DIY
The record provides an expansive canvas for Sufjan to critique the flaws of humanity, at the same time finding room for the inward focus that made his previous offering so compelling.
85
Under the Radar

The Ascension harks back to the heavy electronics of 2010’s Age of Adz but with adroit focus on the themes of existential dread and the quest for meaning with a bounty of angry yet hopeful songs that satisfy melodically and metaphysically.

80
FLOOD Magazine

The Ascension is almost too anxious to bear, but always draws you into its gravitational pull. In short, it’s a 2020 album about self-healing and the wounds that are still fresh.

80
AllMusic

The Ascension ranks with Carrie & Lowell as his most personal and affecting work to date.

80
NME
As the horror show that is 2020 continues to rumble on, ‘The Ascension’ is yet another ample soundtrack to rage-dance to.
80
Clash

There’s a stunning candour to the lyrics, though it gets a little stodgy in the mid-section and, at 80+ minutes, is a little more verbiage than the typical album. Yet we’re dealing with an untypical songwriter, and the last two tracks are among the best he’s ever written.

80
Paste

A sonic sibling to 2010’s electro-pop Age of Adz and a direct follow-up to 2015’s autobiographical, folk-orchestral Carrie and Lowell, The Ascension looks outward.

80
Crack Magazine

These are grand themes and, throughout, the record cosmically fuses together the epic and intimate.

80
The Observer

The Ascension’s maximalist reckoning finds his horror at national affairs mirroring his own inner turbulence.

80
No Ripcord
Stevens doesn’t feel the need to defend himself; he trusts that, this time, we know he’s not fucking around, delivering a confident album that runs through with hooks and synthesized textures that reach sky-high and often get there.
80
Northern Transmissions
Stevens has said that this is his more pessimistic record yet but with him crafting this album, one with so much thoughtfulness to it, shows that ultimately while he is upset with how things are in the current climate, he cares enough to air his grievances in this intriguing, beautiful and quite sprawling way.
75
The Line of Best Fit

Both lyrically and musically, The Ascension appears to be driven by feeling rather than intense intellectualism. Here Stevens’ lyrics are suggestive, initiating a slow-burn response from the listener rather than the immediate dagger-to-the-heart specificity of Carrie & Lowell.

75
Spectrum Culture

Certainly The Ascension is by no means perfect. Yet, Sufjan Stevens has created a work that deserves to heard. The more one listens, the more once begins to appreciate the density of this work and its ability to transform expectations.

75
A.V. Club

A bloated and often beautiful portrait of political and emotional anxiety that longs for nothing more than to break away from the systems that brought us to this current moment.

72
Beats Per Minute

There are undoubtedly some breathtaking songs on The Ascension, but its weaker moments instill a nagging feeling that the 80-minute album tends to overstay its welcome.

70
The Sydney Morning Herald
On his eighth album, Stevens has gone back to the future to soundtrack the current moment, sitting alone at his computer and thinking about the way the world is going (hint: to hell in a handcart) and how he could address that. Answer: English synth-pop from the early '80s. But instead of just using it as window dressing, he subsumes that sound and tries to repurpose it for 2020.
70
Pitchfork
Exhaustive, dense, and detailed, Sufjan Stevens’ electro-opus is another huge artistic leap that speaks plainly to complicated emotions and attempts to rebuild his sound from the ground up.
70
Uncut
On this sometimes obstinate, sometimes sublime record, Stevens shows he contains multitudes.
70
Loud and Quiet
The Ascension may become something of a white elephant in Stevens’ discography: an album of lavish assembly, clearly of immense importance to its creator, and, during its best moments, impressively riveting, but also, you suspect, one that few will revisit in its presented form – a record that only the most devoted of Sufjan stans will be able to swallow whole.
60
The Needle Drop

Though generally not lacking in beauty or scale, The Ascension has a handful of somewhat grating moments that make it harder to love as a holistic experience.

60
Mojo

Both beguiling and frustrating, The Ascension is complex, bold and oddly lovable.

60
The Forty-Five
Overall, ‘The Ascension’ is what you’d call a grower. You could say it was over thought or self-indulgent and the latter maybe true, but you get the impression that Stevens has made precisely the record he wanted to make, with little concern about success or satisfying the fans he amassed on ‘Carrie and Lowell’. Does that make it his best work? Probably not. Does he care? Not one bit.
60
Slant Magazine

While Stevens often reaches great heights on The Ascension, he almost as often seems to get lost in his big ideas.

60
Evening Standard
The album seems like a necessary release for him, a sound without hope for a hopeless time.
60
American Songwriter

Ultimately, it’s those ethereal effects that color this album and give it its feel overall. You might  find yourself scratching your head repeatedly, but in the end, you’ll feel like you’ve been strangely seduced.

50
Sputnikmusic

The various depressive quips throughout Ascension feel more like self-parody than self-affirmation. On the upside, there is plenty of instrumental variety, though the lack of focus seems more the result of meandering at-home synth exploration than innovation.

exception
59

Someone tweeted that "Run Away with Me" on this album was a cover of the Carly Rae Jepsen song, so i immediately jumped on spotify to listen. I was incredibly disappointed. Props to whoever trolled me tho.

JacksonLerner
90

this is the most direct mr. Stevens has ever been, and the honesty shines through. the complexity of ‘the ascension’ is result of sufjan’s drive for greatness; the mixing is on another level, so congrats to suf for that.

this first “major” release in five years is nothing that i expected, for even after hearing ‘aporia’ and all of his extremely experimental electronic projects, this is shockingly different.

“make me an offer i can not ... read more

TheTourist90
NR

"I shit my pants and wet the bed"

Man, I’ve been so excited for this album, it was honestly my most anticipated album of the year. And so after listening to it, I can say… That the hyped lived on to this album! Though let me get something straight, This is much different album than something like Carrie & Lowell and Illinois, because Sufjan Stevens dropped the whole folk genre and go for more experimental electronic sounds, I think some fans will be disappointed, and ... read more

imverydepressed
95

"The Ascension" is an expansive and ambitious work that showcases Sufjan's mastery of indietronica and art pop.

Synicritic
65

some moments are fully captivating and others i’m just painfully bored

j4mie
75

The Ascension is one of Sufjan's better newer releases. It's a really solid, and occasionally fantastic foray into an electro-pop sound. There are a lot of great production choices on this, and it's overall a pretty effecting listen

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Added on: June 30, 2020