In “Carrie and Lowell,” Sufjan Stevens is a child again or, more specifically, the child character in the family of man drama that often but not always centers on the story of love given, or love forsaken, but isn’t that the same thing to the poet? That the love Stevens sings about having left or given or been born to–thank you, Carrie–is a perceptible wound not only on the singer’s throat, but his sleeve: he wears love’s incomprehensibility, and the deep incomprehensibility of being a son, like a backing vocal on “Carrie and Lowell,” which is also filled with colors, hearts, trees, conclusions, and beginnings, all adding up to the kind of intimacy that caught my eye the morning I sat in the diner waiting for the sun to get stronger as I saw intimacy pass by while going about it’s business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams. – HILTON ALS
Track Listing:
01. Death with Dignity
02. Should Have Known Better
03. All Of Me Wants All Of You
04. Drawn to the Blood
05. Eugene
06. Fourth of July
07. The Only Thing
08. Carrie & Lowell
09. John My Beloved
10. No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross
11. Blue Bucket of Gold