''The Ascension'' is the eighth studio album by American musician

Sufjan Stevens Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nomi ...

. It was released through

Asthmatic Kitty Asthmatic Kitty is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by a community of musicians from Holland, Michigan led by Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather Lowell Brams. Some were Holland natives, and others had come to attend local coll ...

on September 25, 2020. The record was influenced by a range of artists, particularly

Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her four-octave vocal range has received critical acclaim, and her personal life has been the subject of widespread media attention. She has received ...

and her 2018 song "

Thank U, Next ''Thank U, Next'' is the fifth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande, released on February 8, 2019, by Republic Records. It was released six months after her fourth studio album '' Sweetener'' (2018), conceived in the midst of Grande ...

Music and lyrics

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's Lindsay Zoladz describes ''The Ascension'' as "an 80-minute meditation that revisits nearly every one of the grand themes he has explored during his two-decade career: Love, death, faith, desire, place, country, apocalypse, resurrection."

Release

The album's lead single, "

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

", was released on July 3, 2020. A second single, "

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", was released on August 13 along with a music video choreographed by Jalaiah Harmon. A third single, "Sugar", and its music video were released on September 15.

Critical reception

''The Ascension'' received positive reviews upon its release. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to ratings from publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 80 based on 25 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Music critic Tom Hull gave it an A-minus and said "singer-songwriter" may be "too self-limiting" a designation for Stevens, who "is a pop composer of grand sweep and delicate bearing, an heir to

Brian Wilson Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...

working on if anything a broader canvas. His is not a style I'm fond of, but half of these songs click for me, and the others seem to be lurking in the depths, awaiting their moment."

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's Sam Sodomsky, however, was more tempered in his praise, noting: "But despite its allusions to pop music escapism, ''The Ascension'' is, by design, kind of a drag: a dark and emotionally distant mood piece whose lyrics rarely touch on the specifics necessary to anchor the music, and whose music is rarely exciting enough to elevate his words."

Year-end lists

Track listing

Personnel

– vocals (all tracks), drums and percussion (all tracks), Tempest (1–13, 15), electric guitar (1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15),

Prophet '08 The Prophet '08 is a polyphonic analog synthesizer created by Dave Smith of St. Helena, California, US, for Dave Smith Instruments (DSI), released in late 2007. As with DSI's other instruments, the Prophet '08 uses analog subtractive synthesis, ...

(all tracks), Prophet 6 (1–11, 13, 15), Prophet X (1, 4, 7–9, 13–15), piano (2, 5, 14, 15), recorders (11, 15); performance, recording, engineering, arrangement, mixing, production; all original art, layout, design, typography * Casey Foubert – bass guitar (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13), vibraphone (1), electric guitar (2, 4, 6–8, 11), lead electric guitar (9, 10, 15); recording and engineering (own contributions) *

Bryce Dessner Bryce David Dessner (born April 23, 1976) is an American composer and guitarist based in Paris, as well as a member of the rock band the National. Dessner's twin brother Aaron is also a member of the group. Together they write the music, in coll ...

– electric guitar (1) * Emil Nikolaisen – black magic (1, 8); engineering (own contributions) * James McAlister – additional drums and percussion (3–6), vocal cut-up effects (4); recording and engineering (own contributions) * TW Walsh – mastering

Charts

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ascension, The 2020 albums Asthmatic Kitty albums Sufjan Stevens albums