Sufjan Stevens

The fourth album from Sufjan Stevens is hushed and intimate, as he gently whispers his lyrics while accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and banjo. The music on Seven Swans was originally slated for the 2003 album Greetings from Michigan, The Great Lake State. But it was already spilling over with songs, so he opted to parlay these tracks into a separate recording. Since he claims that Greetings from Michigan, The Great Lake State is just the first in a series of 50 state-related albums, we'll have to consider Seven Swansa fortunate sidebar before he begins to explore America via the highways of folk-tinged indie pop.

Related Content

• Poll: Did John Lennon Deserve to Be Shot?
  April 12, 2012
• The Three Stooges: The Movie: The Farrelly Brothers' Labor of Love
  April 26, 2012
• The Beaver: Mel Gibson can do crazy
  May 19, 2011
• Five Stoli Losers Who Wouldn't Drink With Themselves
  November 3, 2010
• Eight Random Hipster Holiday Songs
  December 24, 2010

More About

• Sufjan Stevens
• Mel Gibson
• Daniel Smith

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

But Seven Swans is a much more personal record: He's addressing his own ideas of love and pitting them against his ideas of faith. Yes, faith as in the Son of man, the Lamb of God, Mel Gibson, and all that. The record is out on Sounds Familyre, the imprint of the Danielson Famile -- the world's best raggle-taggle indie-folk Christians. In fact, various members of the Famile (including founder Daniel Smith) are featured players here.

As good as Michigan's songs were, they seem like warm-ups compared to the pure songwriting on Seven Swans. Stevens is fond of layering pop songs together, gradually adding bits at a time to create something lush and baroque. Here he simplifies everything, but it's not simply an acoustic record. There's too much attention to other sounds, however slight; even the subtle inflections that he creates when mixing the instrumental bridges between verses seem to be methodically planned out.

The album is filled with a confessional directness, a constant invoking of awe felt for love and faith. You can hear it best on "The Dress Looks Nice on You" and "To Be Alone with You," which are fairly straightforward love songs that are moving in their conciseness. The title track is a six-minute epic with full, grandiose intentions, and a chorus that sings "He is the love" over and over. You needn't think too hard about who He is.