By Jeffrey Trainor (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 6, 2015
Sufjan Stevens has long been considered the most eclectic man in indie. Stevens has touched on a multitude of genres from electronica to lo-fi folk, has focused on a plethora of subjects from fabled stories of U.S. states to Bible-inspired pieces, and has incorporated vast array of instruments, from slide guitars to Theremins — he’s done it all. However, on his latest album, Carrie & Lowell, Stevens digs deep internally for content and presents his most honest, vulnerable and sparse work to date.
Carrie & Lowell focuses on his mother, Carrie. Stevens’ mother was not a fixture in his life as she went through a majority of struggles with bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and alcoholism, before ultimately dying of stomach cancer in 2012. Stevens has spoken about his mother in interviews as a “mythological” presence in his life, with whom he only ever had intermittent connections.
Despite this, her death was a stirring and unsettling moment in Stevens’ life, even if she was only a sporadic part of it. Carrie & Lowell carries the weight of all these anxieties and lays them out in the most accessible and honest way possible.
With the majority of the tracks containing a docile guitar, banjo, or keyboard, Stevens sticks the emphasis on his vocal and lyrical performance.
Lyrically, Carrie & Lowell is heartbreaking and features a bombardment of dark imagery. Stevens touches on the images of shadows, blood, and death multiple times throughout the album, with more blatant lines such as “the evil, it spread like a fever” (“Fourth of July”) and “there’s only a shadow of me / in a manner of speaking, I’m dead” (“John My Beloved”).
It’s an old, tired cliché to say someone wears their heart on their sleeve, but in the case of this release, it is spot-on. Stevens is bringing us into his own personal hell following the passing of his mother and allowing us to experience the full breadth of his misery.
If there’s one thing to take away from Carrie & Lowell, it is that even the darkest of times can bring about a positive result. I would not say Stevens intended this to be the result of Carrie & Lowell, but the fact is this record is a testament to turning a negative and debilitating life event into a piece of art that others can hopefully grasp and connect with. There is a lot of pain captured within the 45-minute runtime, but hopefully it allowed Stevens the chance to work through his despair. After all, that is what this album was about — not the listener, but Stevens himself. Carrie & Lowell is the vessel of his own personal catharsis, and we are merely individuals with a window into this process.
