Albums of the Year

Number 3: High Violet by The National

When this album came out in May, I felt like I’d been looking forward to it for ages. Not least because 2007’s Boxer quickly became one of my favourite albums of all time. Add that to the fact that the single released before the album came out, Bloodbuzz Ohio is one of the best songs they’ve released.

All this meant that there was a lot of pressure on this album to live up to my expectations. Even from the first listen I wasn’t disappointed. The album’s opener Terrible Love is an outstanding track that shows off Bryan Devendorf’s fantastic drumming and sets a standard the rest of the album more than lives up to. Sorrow shows that despite this being a brighter album than Boxer and less angry than Alligator it still contains The National’s trademark downbeat, yet somehow uplifting style. Afraid of Everyone is a beautiful track with Sufjan Stevens on backing vocals (vocals we were lucky enough to see him adding live a few months later).

I could go on explaining everything that I love about each track on this album, but I don’t think there’s any need. There’s no filler, no poor track on the whole album. From the outset to the closing paean to geekhood, Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, this is a joy to listen to.

Is it as good as Boxer? As yet, I’m not sure if I can tell, but it could well be, and there’s not much higher praise I can give it than that.

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Albums of the Year

Number 5: All Delighted People EP / The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens

I don’t feel too much like I’m cheating by blocking these two albums together as one single entity. Partially because they’re both by Sufjan Stevens, clearly, but also because they complement each other.

The All Delighted People EP came first, and of the two is the more restrained, sounding a lot more like previous albums by Stevens. It’s none the worse for that, of course. The title track is a particular delight, and deserves the two versions found on the EP, and alongside Djohariah is probably the best pointer to the album that was to follow. Tracks like Arnika and Enchanted Ghost show off Stevens’ simple songwriting skills and wouldn’t have sounded out of place on previous albums.

When Stevens announced that he was also releasing an album this year, therefore, I was expecting much of the same. However, October’s Age of Adz, despite containing many of his hallmarks, sounds nothing like music he’s made in the past. This may in part be due to the fact that Stevens has been suffering from some sort of debilitating virus which has caused him immense pain. This feels reflected in the music. There’s an ebb and flow between the quiet and loud sections of the albums, from the restrained to the bombastic, that bears a similarity to the feeling of the ebb and flow of pain. Stevens himself said that the album is “a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That’s why I think the record’s really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it.” That obsession with sensation becomes more clear on repeated listens. The album has a texture unlike anything he’s produced before. The multi-layered musicality of what he often produces is still there, but the ubiquity of drum machines producing often unusual beats creates an entirely different feel.

The album itself is named after a work by American artist Royal Robertson, who was a schizophrenic who saw visions and believed himself to be a prophet, and there’s a sense of import, drama and intensity that Stevens clearly relates to.

Both albums come across as works written by a man who’s absolutely overcome by original ideas, a man who has music just pouring out of him, and barely the means to control it. And there are parallels there with the subject of the album - the comparison between music, talent, originality and the notion of prophecy, schizophrenia, paranoia and madness. Both are mystical and difficult to explain. Both are difficult to control and harness, and with both it’s difficult to tell how the people you share it with will react. Is the prophecy true? Has the music succeeded?

Personally, I think it’s a triumph. A difficult, textured, slightly mad glimpse of genius.