Convocations is a serious work and well worth the time invested listening to it. It may not be Sufjan’s best work or even his most adventurous, but it is a bold statement.

Full Review

4mo

Best of 2021

Worst of 2021

Recent Reviews

The Arts Desk

He plays with the mind-bending quality of harmonics, and the eerie feel of indeterminate pitch. There is beauty here, but also a certain terror – as if the abyss were never far away.

4mo

Your reception towards Convocations will depend on your patience, your tolerance for experimental albums, and whether you're even a fan of Stevens' instrumental work to begin with.

4mo

It is by turns curious, brittle, exquisite, and surely among the most accomplished and beautiful records of Stevens’ career.

4mo

It’s a slow and patient exploration of grief, layered with moments of surprising melodic beauty.

4mo

The nonstop push and pull over the course of two-and-a-half hours and five volumes creates a sort of structural elasticity to the music that draws the listener in as much as it repels them.

4mo

‘Convocations’ is a mature work, but its length and intricate creation makes it difficult to get under its skin, the record’s wonderful honesty hidden behind layers that you wish could be peeled back.

4mo

3mo

Convocations is undoubtedly cathartic. Parts are beautiful, haunting even, but across its two-and-a-half hours it’s a necessary requiem of self-indulgence for Sufjan Stevens rather than a compelling project from heartbreak’s luminary, whose insular yet evangelical compositions have scored decades of sorrow.

Full Review

4mo

User Reviews

View All

FritoRio

Cockcations

4mo

Jamobo

Convocations is a 5-part project that looks at the subject of grief and isolation

Losing his father just 2 days after the release of his last project, The Ascension, in late 2020, Sufjan Stevens decided to create an album that could help anyone else that was going through what he was. While death and the pain that goes with it is, sadly, common, this record would also specifically touch on the distance, both physical and emotional, created by the pandemic.

While it might seem like each of the ... read more

4mo*

TheCarioca

Meditation I - 4/5
Meditation II - 3/5
Meditation III - 4/5
Meditation IV - 4/5
Meditation V - 3/5
Meditation VI - 5/5 ❤
Meditation VII - 3/5
Meditation VIII - 3/5
Meditation IX - 3/5
Meditation X - 3/5
Lamentation I - 3/5
Lamentation II - 0/5 ☢
Lamentation III - 3/5
Lamentation IV - 1/5
Lamentation V - 2/5
Lamentation VI - 3/5
Lamentation VII - 4/5
Lamentation VIII - 3/5
Lamentation IX - 3/5
Lamentation X - 4/5
Revelation I - 4/5
Revelation II - 1/5
Revelation III - 3/5
Revelation IV - ... read more

4mo

Hom1803

Catharsis in its purest form

4mo