Sufjan Stevens needs no introduction; he is one of the very best music artists today who remains intimately connected to the indie label thanks to 2005’s Illinois and 2015’s Carrie and Lowell. On top of that, his discography is largely prolific with his most recent projects including a ballet soundtrack and a collaboration with Angelo De Augustine. However, 2023 has proved to be very rough for him. His typically private lifestyle was chipped away when his Instagram post in September reveals that he’s recovering from an autoimmune disease that leaves him paralysed for a short time. His Tumblr post also confirms that he got into a same-sex relationship when he dedicates his latest work to his late partner Evans Richardson who passed away in April. Many might celebrate it as a coming out episode, but I doubt that this was his intent, at all. 

Similar to the likes of David Bowie’s Blackstar or Neutral Milk Hotel’s The Aeroplane Over the Sea, context is the defining factor in the listening experience. It’s one thing to enjoy it as a feel-filled indie folk record. It’s another to see it as an exercise in grief and catharsis. Javelin offers a certain charm that is welcoming in all its desires for longing. It’s not a simple piece of elegy dedicated towards someone passing away. The title track comes closest to thinking of death without the need of subtext, but the way that it’s been allegorised to a similar dynamic between Pontus Pilate and Jesus creates a peculiar connection. Is Sufjan letting his feelings out or is he thinking that he should be in Richardson’s place instead?

Instead of wallowing in misery, Javelin beckons the question around one’s mortality. What if you were to be a devout Christian and lose the love of your life? This is a crucial theme that weaves Stevens’s colourful verses into a highly introspective outlook into himself. As a firm believer of Jesus’s forgiving nature through his redemptive crucifixion, this is the closest we have to death as the ultimate expurgation of vice. ‘Will Anyone Ever Love Me?’ and ‘Everything That Rises’ are among the key songs here as they revolve around being a sinner. In singing of “the heartache and misery [he creates]”, we’re made to ask this. Does he, the beloved singer-songwriter who works for nearly 30 years, see himself as a liability for forsaking his peaceful personal life in favour of being an indie darling? 

Stevens mixes the electronic aspects that inform his 2010 left-field work The Age of Adz with the ghastly folk of Carrie and Lowell and Illinois’s orchestral ambitions to give Javelin its distinct sound palette. ‘Goodbye Evergreen’ begins with the morose, minor-keyed piano chords that stood in contrast with the unconventional time signature and jagged patterns of ‘Jacksonville’. Yet, its abrupt transition from chamber folk to electro-choral cacophony upon the plea to be freed “from this poisoned pain” bursts open the desire for forgiveness. 

Throughout the tracks like ‘A Running Start’ or ‘Genuflecting Ghost’, there are droplets of computerised percussion that hides behind the vocal harmonies and scintillating instrumentations. They might not be entirely prevalent, yet these signs of distinction makes for an alien, fascinating journey that invites you into the frustrated psyches. 

Additionally, the album isn’t so much a thorough examination of Stevens’s sexuality as one would have thought. Between his temporary paralysis and losing his loved ones over the past decade, Stevens insinuates that his non-heteronormative conformity leaves little room for conciliation with his beliefs. Instead of contemplating his preferences, he portrays love as being beyond the labelling of orientation. This, to me, is one of the album’s greatest, yet nuanced, strengths. 

Take, for instance, the absence of third-person pronouns. In all of the songs here, he illustrates his affection to his love interest, whether it be Richardson or someone he imagined, using only “I” or “you”. These are best illustrated on ‘So You Are Tired’ and ‘My Red Little Fox’ where Stevens reminisces over his tumultuous love life. Here, he never sees himself as the omniscient narrator. Instead, he portrays a love life that’s fraught with difficulties and, rather than argue that it’s the fault between him and his partner, he gradually shifts to accept himself as being entirely in his fault. In presenting his struggles as being around everyday issues and not around gender or sexual identities, there’s a great deal of humanisation and it’s beautiful to notice Stevens at his most vulnerable. 

The lack of discernible pronouns to a partner, the diversity in instrumentation, and the self-loathing motif all culminates in ‘Shit Talk’. The emotional climax of the whole album, Stevens calls forth to his unattainable muse with a loud-quiet dynamic in the song structure, admitting that he “will always love [them] / But [he] cannot live with [them]”. Notice the tension that comes with this seeming melodrama. The subtext of blaming oneself throughout the record adds a lot of weight to the co-dependent contrast which only builds up in layers and layers of vocal harmonies and acoustic performance. This culminates in the repeating admittance that lasts for a quarter of the song: “i don’t wanna fight at all”. In becoming more unclear to the point of an ambient ending, we’re met with a simple declaration of eternal love. Stevens accepts that what is done is done. It is time to move on from his past romance.

For all the highs within Javelin, the ending might come off as being antithetical to the focus on introspection. The cover of Neil Young’s ‘There’s A World’ is beautiful and catchy in its fingerpicking guitar and echoing vocals, yet the attempts made to present an ethereal closure doesn’t feel as impactful as I would’ve liked. It might’ve been to do with how uplifting it might feel. It might be due to how it’s simply a cover and not a clear original song. Nonetheless, it’s a pleasant listen even if it might not cohesively fit with the rest of the album. 

Javelin is a gemstone for indie folk fans in general without a doubt from the likes of Bright Eyes to boygenius or PJ Harvey. However, I do want to linger on one little bit – the classic talk of Stevens’s sexuality. As mentioned previously, I don’t consider this to be about his sexual orientation, let alone a clear ‘coming out’ album. If anything, I doubt that the dedication to Richardson is an affirmation of his sexuality. In fact, there is virtually nothing about this that alludes to a male or female lover save for a feminine “queen” in ‘My Red Little Fox’. What Stevens wants to demonstrate instead is the intense closeness of his love even if it might clash with his Christian views for all its ups and downs. Given what I have mentioned, such hints might allude to being pan but that would have no use to this at all. Empirical feelings come first and foremost. Categorisation comes second.

4.6/5