Ma dudes, of course it’s great. It’s Sufjan freaking Stevens, yo! This is only their second proper album since their magnum opus ‘Carrie & Lowell’, which I named best album of 2015 ahead of ‘To Pimp a Butterfly*’ and forever confirmed that I am, in fact, the softest of soft soyboys. But Sufjan’s creativity and genius is far from simply contained to their own albums: they’ve penetrated Necessary Evil with Lowell themselves, with fellow indie softbois Bryce Dessnar, Nico Muhly & James McAllister, and just with shit that didn’t fit on his magnum opus. They had two Necessary Evil entries in 2017 and in 2020. Mate, the Sufjan Stevens Blogging Universe (SSBU) is rich with lore.

(*as low as number 14! You’ll rarely see lists of best albums of all time where it’s listed that low! And I stand by it. Why? Because I’m a free thinker. A philosopher. A leader. And, yeah, also a soft soyboy)

And they almost had two entries on the 2023. The year also saw the 20th anniversary release of ‘Michigan‘, and if you haven’t heard that album, maybe… like… listen to it rather than ‘Javelin’? Like, seriously, it shits all over this album. I’m not one of those dedicated softbois who have followed Sufjan religiously since he was releasing electronic albums based around the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and…