The Avalanche

Pitchfork 7.2/10 Sufjan Stevens reaches his saturation point with this 75-minute, 21-track companion album to last year's acclaimed Illinois.

A.V. Club B The Avalanche's best songs would've been Illinois standouts as well.

NME 4/5 These are the out-takes? Further insights from the Dylan of anti-folk.

All Music 3.5/5 Stevens constructed an alternate version of Illinois that is almost as good as the original.

The Observer 3/5 Not good enough for Illinoise, perhaps, but gorgeous none the less.

Slant 4.5/5 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.

Pop Matters 8/10 Although not as flat-out amazing as its parent album, this new record shows us that even Stevens’s warmed-up leftovers are more creative, engaging, sophisticated, beautiful, and simply better than what most other musical acts have to offer with their A-list material.

The Guardian 4/5 Stevens is a pensively nostalgic folk chorister like the Paul Simon of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme: he is just as prone to swerving into an epiphanic Bach-lite chorale, but as yet short of memorable tunes on his own account. He's close enough to be fascinating, though.