In the five years since Sufjan Stevens’ last album, one thing has become abundantly clear: he is sick of America’s bullshit. 

After breaking through with Michigan and Illinois — gorgeous, painstakingly-researched albums steeped in Americana — Stevens indulged in a diverse array of collaborative projects from ballet scores and Oscar-nominated movie soundtracks to The BQE, a mixed-medium exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. 

Along the way, Stevens continued to release stunning solo albums, most notably The Age of Adz and Carrie & Lowell. His sonic sensibilities continued to evolve throughout this period, but there were always through lines that anchored the projects in his oeuvre. Faith, death, love, loss and resurrection permeate all of Stevens’ work, whether it’s the sprawling electro-odyssey “Impossible Soul” or the fragile acoustic affair “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross.”

At its heart, The Ascension examines disillusionment and loss of faith — not in God, but in America. Lyrically, it’s Stevens’ most confrontational and forthright album. He trades winding anecdotes and metaphors for bold proclamations and cries for help. 

On the album’s first single, “America,” Stevens confesses, “I have loved you, I have grieved / I’m ashamed to admit I no longer believe.” On “Tell Me You Love Me,” he adds, “My love, I’ve lost my faith in everything / Tell me you love me anyway.”

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Stevens explained, “It was intentional to eliminate anything autobiographical or personal or narrative. I didn’t want anything representational. That’s not helpful right now. I don’t need to project a narrative onto a crisis like this. I want to just deal with the problems head-on, no mincing of words.”

Like much of Stevens’ work, The Ascension is dense, detailed, even meandering. One might be tempted to compare the 2020 album to Stevens’ previous electro-opus The Age of Adz. But, where The Age of Adz walks a fine line of over-orchestration, The Ascension is spare and ruminative. At one point, Stevens whispers “I wanna die happy” over solemn synthesizers for five consecutive minutes.

Fortunately, there are breaks in the doom and gloom. The last minutes of “Tell Me You Love Me” are truly transcendent, standing comfortably along any of Stevens’ most buoyant work. After a litany of progressively hopeless questions, the dam breaks and he proclaims, “I’m gonna love you / I’m gonna love you anyway” as swelling synths and layered vocals build to create a defiantly hopeful climax.

The hopeful break, though, is short-lived. The Ascension quickly returns to decrying the loss of any sense of normality. Religious imagery has always permeated Stevens’ music, but the song “Lamentations” stands out as particularly appropriate. The biblical text from the 6th century BC mourns the destruction of Jerusalem as a result of communal sins. Similarly, The Ascension portrays a broken nation that’s brought about its own demise. Neither work betrays a loss of faith in God or accusations of injustice, yet each work is consumed by grief.

Carrie & Lowell, Stevens’ most recent offering, is also steeped in grief. In The Ascension, though, grief over personal loss is replaced by grief regarding the state of the country. At the end of this 80-minute exploration of desperation, we’re left with a portrait of an artist forced to reckon with a crumbling world. Whether that reckoning will result in further disillusionment or new-found hope, only time will tell. 

Andy Witchger (@andywitchger) lives in Minneapolis. His work has appeared in Forbes, Fast Company, Rolling Stone MX, City Pages and Time Out.