A few years ago news of a new Sufjan Stevens album would not be met with such anticipation. Not that there was a lack of interest, as Stevens’ popularity grew steadily with each sensitive, folk-tinged record he put out, but rather due to him being extremely prolific, after all many music critics and fans took his desire to write an album for all fifty of America’s states at face value. However, following the critical and commercial success of 2005’s Come On Feel The Illinoise (Stevens has rarely been one to shy away from ludicrousness in his titles or lyrical wordplay), the future of Stevens musical career seemed on rather flimsy ground.

Over the five years that followed the release of Illinoise, Stevens may have actually released more material than most artists, but in truth none of these seemed to be the genuine article being instead comprised of cast-offs (The Avalanche), songs intended as gifts for family and friends (Songs For Christmas), instrumental works (the BQE, Run Rabbit Run) or the occasional collaboration or guest appearance. Only earlier this year he intimated in interviews that not only was he ditching the fifty states project due to its sheer impossibility, but he was close to giving up on music altogether.

Then in August, Stevens surprised everyone by quietly releasing the All Delighted People EP, although the general consensus was that he shouldn’t have bothered, being as it was dreary and uninspired (and considering that it dragged on for over an hour it wasn’t even that good at being an EP). So, expectations were mixed when his label soon afterwards made a similar surprise announcement for an upcoming album of all-new material.

Named after and decorated with the work of outsider artist Royal Robertson, The Age of Adz instantly seems like a massive volte-face from the warmth of Illinoise (even down to the cover art, both may be similarly naive but where Illinoise’s was knowingly twee, Robertson’s feverish scrawls are genuinely disturbing), dominated as it is by harsh electronica rather than the soothing banjo and lush string arrangements that Stevens is so often associated with. However, on each repeated listen, Adz reveals itself to be as much an exhaustive trip through Stevens’ back-catalogue as it is a dramatic new venture.

Opener Futile Devices makes a nice, easy prologue – the song’s personal, apologetic lyrics may mark a departure from Stevens’ previous epic storytelling but the simple arrangement of just his vocals and a banjo sounds similar to his first state-based album Michigan and its follow up Seven Swans. It’s with the second track Too Much that Adz’ more difficult and demented aspects come to the fore, packing in as it does not only appearance of the synths and beats, but contrasting Illinoise-style string and choir arrangements fighting for attention in the background. It seems like a bit of a mess, but a fascinating one, particularly when the still confessional and personal lyrics are considered – if the multitude of voices didn’t suggest otherwise, it would be completely plausible to suggest that Stevens was recording his innermost thoughts and pains alone from the safety of his own bedroom. On the title track that follows, things get even grander, it being an eight-minute long number built around the dramatic synth stabs that were a common feature of hip-hop about seven years ago and a gorgeous chorus based on the call and response of Stevens and his choir wordlessly wailing at each other.

Following this, it’s inevitable that the next few numbers would be dialled back somewhat, and consequently they do seem slight and disappointing, Now That I’m Older, for example is perfectly nice, but nothing much more than that, in fact the insubstantial, slow-motion nature of the song  make it sound like it’s been recorded underwater. However, it’s in these numbers that the lyrical themes of the album start to become clearer, I Walked may be typical break-up stuff, albeit taken to a rather gloomy extreme, but when considered in conjunction with Get Real Get Right’s ‘Get real, get right with the Lord’ and Bad Communication’s ‘I’ll talk but you won’t listen to me’, it suggests that The Age of Adz, and Stevens’ surrounding career-based doubts have been based around a crisis of faith. In the past Stevens has never been afraid to wear his religious beliefs on his sleeve for all to see (what elevated him above the usual dullness of Christian rock was his ability to use this to raise questions and express doubt rather than just offering blind praise, as best seen in Illinoise’s Casimir Pulaski Day), now it seems that for this record he has been unable, for whatever reason, to combine his faith with his morbid thoughts and so felt compelled to explore them based around Robertson’s demonic, pagan mythology.

The final third of the record is, however, where its most interesting music lies (some of it the album’s best, some its worst). Vesuvius is a definite contender for album highlight, marrying as it does glitchy electronica with very traditional instrumentation in a recorder section – a combination Stevens’ also experimented with on his (sort-of) debut A Sun Came. Additionally, Vesuvius also resembles Songs For Christmas’ stand-out Sister Winter both musically and lyrically with both being based around the personification of the harsh, destructive side of nature. The fact that the recorders continue on into next number All For Myself means that one of the album’s slighter songs is transformed into something almost as moving.

Despite the complicated nature of the previous tracks, Adz’s most shocking developments come in its final two numbers. I Want To Be Well marks not only the moment when indie music’s biggest goodie-two-shoes finally succumbed to using swear-words, but sees Stevens at his most desperate, repeating the phrase ‘I’m not fucking around’ over and over to a level of near hysteria as he takes the subject of terminal illness he previously explored in Casimir Pulaski Day and removes the safety-net of that song’s storytelling, now turning the focus on himself. Twenty-five minute long epilogue Impossible Soul, could probably merit a whole review on its own. Based around five sections, the song sees Stevens offer up a lengthy guitar solo, experiments with rapping and auto-tune, which although technically terrible, work largely because of his lack of embarrassment, the cheerleader style vocals which appeared regularly on Illinoise, and on conclusion once again based around the intimate sound of Stevens alone accompanying himself on a banjo, giving The Age of Adz an Ourobros structure as the end of the album seems to bleed back into the start. In short, Impossible Soul is strange, amusing, brilliant, awful and exhausting.

Despite representing all the stages of Stevens’ musical evolution during its 74 minute running time, The Age of Adz isn’t an ideal primer for his work (that’s still the gorgeous Seven Swans, the closest he’s come to releasing a flawless album), and its initial coldness and harshness may in fact lose him a fair amount of fans. But on the other hand the album may very well appeal to those who had previously written him off as too wet and sentimental. And the hardcore of Stevens’ fan-base who will happily sit with him through such lengthy experimentations get one of the most interestingly structured and rewarding albums of the year, which openly invites the listener to continuous repeated listens in order to unlock more of its hidden pleasures.