The Avalanche
Sufjan Stevens reaches his saturation point with this 75-minute, 21-track companion album to last year's acclaimed Illinois.
Sufjan Stevens is never going to get through his "50 States" project if he doesn't get the hell out of Illinois. A year after releasing his album-length tribute to The Prairie State—and three years after doing the same for Michigan—Stevens brings The Avalanche, a collection of Illinois outtakes that runs as long as…
Sufjan Stevens' Come on Feel the Illinoise was a long, gorgeous, and occasionally convoluted kaleidoscope of folk, pop, and orchestral rock fused with personal regional history that somehow managed to lure listeners of all ages and genre allegiances into its pompon-wielding arms.
Since this is still ostensibly an album of outtakes, there’s perhaps an even stronger case to be made for excising the instrumental cuts this time.