It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed new music on Team Hellions. There was a time when I enjoyed it, looking forward to each new release, week to week, and the new soundscapes introduced to me. Then, I began to hate it, record by record. I hated being critical of music, of each tiny note, of every lyric uttered. It became the death of my enjoyment. So, why then am I writing a review? For the first time in a long time I feel compelled to tell people about an album that has fucked with my head. Has remained with me for a few weeks now, and demands to be played at least once a day.

Music has always been an obsession for me. In my senior year of high school, it was not uncommon to see me lugging a CD binder designed to hold over 250 of them, completely full, with a CD Walkman and headphones running to my ears. These tools were practically an appendage, earning me the title “music god” among a few friends. Ah, the days before the digital revolution: It’s nice to look back and laugh at those days, and how innocent and stupid it all was. Death didn’t run my life then. That’s not to say death wasn’t around; I had experienced one, my grandfather’s. While we were close, I don’t think I was old enough to know what losing someone meant. I still don’t totally know what it means seven deaths later, but I’m still trying.

“I guess I believe there are as many manifestations of death as there are life itself” says Stevens at a recent concert. I also tend to believe this because death to the remainders, as I call anyone who’s experienced it, feels different for everybody. I’ve always thought of the death of a person as a shattered statue, because when you look down at it, what you’re looking at is not the broken remains of this person you loved, it’s the people that person had an effect on in their lifetime. Some pieces are bigger, some smaller, and each has an assigned individual weight. This assigned weight is called grief.

George Saunders said it best in blog post eulogy for David Foster Wallace: “Grief is, in a sense, the bill that comes due for love.” Grief is the avenue Carrie & Lowell lives on and this seventh Sufjan Stevens album is the acknowledgement of that grief.

Sufjan Stevens has spent his 15 year career as a musical folklorist. His unique ability to create a new American mythology around 21st century figures put him on the map back in 2005 with the release of Illinoise. He’s reinvented biblical figures like Abraham, and Jesus. He’s even produced an album in honor of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Carrie & Lowell is wholly unique. It’s deeply stripped, not to say that Stevens hasn’t paired down his sound before (for examples, check out A Sun Came and Seven Swans). But this time it feels damn near quiet.

The subject of the album is Stevens’ mother, who died in December of 2012. Her absence plays a big part on this record. Aside from a few summers in Oregon, and other sporadic visits and letters, he never quite knew her due to depression, schizophrenia, and alcoholism. Within that tortured existence is the idea of growing up with the mythology of someone instead of the person themselves. Not knowing a parent at all is as tortured an existence and event as a parent burying a child. This sentiment is heavily echoed on the track “John My Beloved.”

The album opener “Death with Dignity” informs the entirety of the album. “Spirit of my silence/ I can hear/ but I’m afraid to be near you,” sings Stevens’ in a whispered tone, like he’s inviting an anthropomorphic death to a conversation. Even in death, he “longs to be near” his mother. This sentiment is echoed a couple of times on the album, including the track “Eugene.” On “Fourth of July” Stevens’ concocts a fictional conversation between him and his mother. She comforts him about her death, and calls him by endearing names like “my little hawk” and “my star in the sky.” He always arrives at the same sentiment though, “we’re all gonna die.”

On “The Only Thing” Stevens’ contemplates suicide and what keeps him from going through with it. Even if it’s the little things like constellations, sea lion caves or his faith in reason, he finds big meaning in little victories and the search for understanding. And isn’t that what gets us all through the day to day? The little victories?

Within the minimalist production of Carrie & Lowell, there is a loudness through the whispering. The meaning of each song hangs heavy and large on the melodies, aided by loud synths and organs. It makes it sound like a question is being put to the universe and a wave length is being provided for the answer.

Despite the sadness, there is a small amount of hope when you process through the anger and grief. “My brother had a daughter/ the beauty that she brings/ illumination” Stevens’ sings on “Should Have Known Better.” He looks for things “to extol” on “Blue Bucket of Gold” and finds forgiveness on “Death with Dignity.”

“I know there’s many, many seasons of sorrow and grief.” Sufjan states at a recent concert. He goes on to say that maybe we shouldn’t perceive death as an antagonistic force, but as a good friend and companion. Carrie & Lowell is the forging of that new great relationship with death by purging through the grief, the anger, and the guilt to get to the forgiveness. It tries to find meaning through life experience even if all the answers aren’t available to us now. And that brings me comfort, because we need to forge new ways to save ourselves from our sorrows. That’s this albums ultimate achievement. That’s why it should be cherished.

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