How exactly does an artist follow up a career-defining album dedicated to one's home state, one that is jam-packed with innovative arrangements and a multitude of instrumental colors, and showered with critical acclaim?

If you're Sufjan Stevens, the answer is simple - you make 49 more of them.

Now you see, I thought the guy was kidding when he said that 2003's Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State was going to be the first in a series of albums dedicated to the 50 States. I figured it was a good joke to drum up curiosity about the album, and when you've got an album as good as that one, you have a right to engage in unorthodox but humorous publicity stunts, right? Well, it wasn't a joke after all. While it's true that 2004's Seven Swans was a departure, both from the 50 States theme and from the jubilant and busy progressive folk that gave Michigan such a unique personality, it didn't mean that Sufjan had abandoned the idea. On the contrary, it was announced early in 2005 that not only was a full album dedicated to the state of Illinois on the way, but that he might even be working on EP's for Rhode Island and Vermont, potentially due out later in the year. As someone who found Michigan, with all of its banjos and bells and spirited choruses and long song titles and weird time signatures and tales of down-and-out denizens of the double peninsula, to be such a good album that it almost immediately catapulted itself into my all-time Top 10 list, it's not a stretch to say that Illinois was 2005's most highly anticipated album for me. So naturally, I was overjoyed when the album was leaked to the Internet in late April, during an otherwise rough week when I was fending off a cold and my car was in the shop getting some costly repairs done. The official release wasn't until July, so this was like Christmas coming on Halloween or something.

Well, I have an official copy of the album in my hands now (pay no attention to the July 5 release date; you can get it from ashmatickitty.com right away, and for 10 bucks, no less), and its official title appears to be Come On! Feel the Illinoise! That's an entertaining choice of words, sure to tick off natives of that state who get irritated when people pronounce the "s". But just one listen to this monstrous disc should be enough to keep those folks from getting too Ill-Annoyed. While this album unmistakably owes its inspiration to the sound of Michigan, Sufjan has managed to take his orchestra-like folk template and expand on it, tapping into unexpected genres and bringing unexpected instruments like strings and woodwinds to the forefront, all while relating tales of the state's history as well as possibly fictional stories about its residents. To sweeten the deal, Sufjan's vocals have also improved some (he was never a weak vocalist, in my opinion, but he's managed to make his thin, meek vocal presence a little more noticeable, and while that doesn't stopping from using members of the quirky Danielson Famile as his own personal choir, it's nice to hear him sound more assured on some of this album's mellower moments.

Another noticeable change is that the subject matter has widened in scope. Where Michigan appeared to be a series of vignettes - mostly just slices of normal life told from several perspectives - Illinois takes on more of an educational and historical perspective, not shying away from some of its bleaker moments like your average textbook might. It's a lot to take in at once, but never fear, because you're not required to understand this album in order to be thrilled by it. I could probably spend months digging up fact after fact that these songs allude to, and while it's neat that Sufjan has me so excited to do my homework on this album, none of it ever feels so heady that my heart tunes out. Even the most blunt statements of fact seem to mean something to Sufjan as he wanders through this audible scrapbook, piecing together the meaning of it all.

I might have one small criticism against Illinois - and honestly, it's a trifling matter, but one that I might as well bring up because it's kind of humorous. When I first heard that this album was going to be released, I came up with a joke track listing that parodied the excessive and mildly amusing titles found on Michigan. This led to spoof titles such as "Springfield (It's Not Where the Simpsons Live)", "O Great Chicago, May I Ask of Thee a Question?", "I Lost My Banjo in East St. Louis", and "3 AM on a Tuesday Morning in Decatur". Well, not only did some of my titles hit pretty close to the places and things Sufjan would end up writing about, but his track listing totally blew mine out of the water in terms of ridiculously long and amusing song titles (stealing Anberlin's crown in that department from earlier this year). And hey, there's nothing wrong with that, but since a number of the tracks are short interludes that really just introduce or act as a coda for the full songs beside them, it sometimes feel like Sufjan made certain tracks separate just so that he could have one more thing to name. You'd never know if you were just listening without watching the tracks numbers... but yeah, 22 tracks might be just a tad excessive. It makes the back of the jewel case an eye-opposing read, though.

Anyway, enough of my nitpicking. The music here is packed with innovation and personality, so I might as well get to the task of describing it all.

Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
In the spirit of three stars
The alien thing that took its form
Then to Lebanon, oh God!
The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow...
Much like Michigan, Illinois begins with a piano ballad, though this one's much brighter in tone, sweetened by the presence of a flute and/or recorder trilling about, adding an air of exotic mystery. This song makes vague illusions to a real claim that UFO's were seen floating about near the cities of Highland in Lebanon in 2000, and Sufjan's sparse lyrics seem to jump in at odd times, forcing the piano rhythm to change. The song has a stately, proper feel to it, made slightly whimsical by the subject matter. Because of its short length, it actually feels like this song and the one that follows are connected thoughts in some way.

The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, "I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!"
No foolin' - that's the real song title! (Told you they were ridiculous on this album.) The first of several brief instrumentals shows up here, with drums rolling in like dark thunderheads as Sufjan and a few background voices fill the air with wordless "aah"s. While the drums later erupt into an apocalyptic march complete with blasting horns, it's the high-pitched flutes/piccolos that stir up the most fury here, fluttering about like angry bees as they crash headlong into the other instruments. It all only lasts for about two minutes, but it's an interesting sound painting of a tense time when native Americans in the Illinois territory were being mistreated by the American government, leading to skirmishes which in turn endangered civilian settlers.

Come On! Feel the Illinoise!
Ancient hieroglyphic, or the South Pacific
Typically terrific, busy and prolific
Classical devotion, architect promotion
Lacking an emotion, think about it now...
The album's theme song comes marching in like a triumphant homecoming parade, with rolling piano and horns blurting in 5/8 time as an excited chorus of voices blurts out random facts about the World Columbian Exposition of 1893. Sufjan muses in between these peppy choruses about the "great white city" temporarily built for that fair, wondering where its walls have gone and what price Chicago had to pay for its glitzy commerce. The song is actually split into two parts, the first dealing with the exposition and the other being labeled "Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream", which is fairly self-explanatory as long you know who Carl Sandburg was. (He was a poet who wrote about Chicago, among other things.) The rhythm settles into more of a normal 4/4, still rolling along playfully on the drums, while regal strings and woodwinds provide the melody and little bits of electric guitar flit about. Amidst all of that, Sufjan muses about attitudes and beatitudes and the all-important question, "Are you writing from the heart?"

John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
Twenty-seven people, even more
They were boys with their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God, are you one of them?
An ominous darkness sweeps over the album at this point, as an acoustic guitar gently plucks out this solemn ballad, perhaps one of the most beautiful songs ever written about a serial killer. It's kind of tough to label a song "beautiful" when it talks about kidnapping innocent boys, kissing them, taking their lives, and burying them under the house, but this contrast makes a lot of sense in light of how the public knew this man, who dressed as a clown to entertain children and who was regarded as a pretty nice guy before his crimes were discovered. It might be difficult to stomach for some, but for me, it makes Sufjan's brief leaps into falsetto even more achingly beautiful, and I don't think he's doing any of this for shock value. At the end of the song comes a hushed, and humble revelation that shows us Sufjan knows the dark capabilities of his own heart all too well: "And in my best heavier, I am really just like him/Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid". The song ends on that tense observation, and it's a great one to ponder during the brief moment of silence.

Jacksonville
I'm not afraid of Nichols Park
I ride the train and I ride it after dark
I'm not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it one more try...
For the life of me, I can't quite figure out how Sufjan manages to let strings dominate the arrangement of song (it seems to happen a lot on this album) without it having a gloppy and sentimental effect. On songs like this one, it's more of a whimsical effect, at least in my mind, and it serves as an interesting counterpoint to the "swampy" feel of the song, which is provided by a start-stop rhythm and a little banjo plucking. (Ah, there's Sufjan's beloved banjo. I was wondering when it was going to show up.) I can't help but wonder if something political is going on in this song, since the lyrics seem to deal with the abolition of slavery and Sufjan opens with the eyebrow raising lines "I'm not afraid of the black man running/He's got it right, he's got a better life coming". A neat little trumpet fanfare dominates the chorus, which is instrumental at first but later contains lyrics that refer to Andrew Jackson and other important historical references that I admit I haven't yet taken the time to look up.

A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, but for Very Good Reasons
This track is simply about 45 seconds of stringed instruments either warming up or winding down, offering a mournful coda to the previous song. I'm going to assume that "Mary Todd" refers to Mary Todd Lincoln, who had a rather famous president for a husband who met a rather unfortunate demise. So yeah, that's a good reason for insanity, though if the title had been up to me, I'd have gone with, "Aside from That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?"

Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!
The sound of the engines and the smell of the grain
We go riding on the abolition grain train
Stephen A. Douglas was a great debater
But Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator...
Hey, I was right! He really does have a song about Decatur! Continuing with the "swampy" feel (hmmm, it seems like this sort of thing might've belonged on Louisiana or Mississippi), Sufjan sings about a step mom who he didn't care for very much, but who apparently played a pivotal role in his learning and appreciating history as a kid. It might be fictional, it might not (we learned in "Romulus" on the last album that Sufjan, or one of his characters, had some major mommy issues), but either way, it provides a great excuse for Sufjan to rhyme as many things as he can with "Decatur", such as "congratulate her", "alligator", "Emancipator", etc. (In the process, he manages to remind me how "Decatur" is pronounced - here I was trying to be all fancy and foreign by pronouncing it "Day-cah-TER".) It's a fun and quirky bit of songwriting, a little more relaxed in tone that anything else we've heard on the album thus far, and curiously, in the midst of the history lesson, he keeps interjecting "It's the Great I Am". Hey, it wouldn't be a Sufjan Stevens album without the stray religious references, right?

One Last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman
I hate to say it, but this track is pretty much useless. It's seven seconds of applause and a guy going "Whoo-hoo-hoo!" that could have been kept as part of "Decatur".

Chicago
If I was crying in the van, with my friend
It was for freedom, from myself and from the land
I made a lot of mistakes...
I'm thinking that the "big city" song is going to become a necessary centerpiece of each of these state-themed albums, and "Chicago" continues in fine fashion after Michigan's "Detroit", eschewing the weird, skippy rhythm for a breezy 4/4 stomp that represents the hustle and bustle of one of America's largest metropolises (metropoli?) Ironically, Chicago is only mentioned in passing, and the majority of the song seems to be about traveling around, looking for love and adventure in different cities as Sufjan rides in a van with his friends. Listen carefully and you'll hear a lot of instruments in the background, from the quick banjo plucking on which Sufjan originally based the song, to the deep buzzing of the bass, to the bells and horns that ride on top of it, holding on for dear life. While Sufjan pulls back in terms of song length and doesn't quite draw this one out to "Detroit"-like proportions, it still stands out as one of the album's central epics.

Casimir Pulaski Day
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth...
A quieter, banjo-driven ballad and a long series of short verses make this song kind of a mirror image of "Romulus". Similar to that song, "Casimir Pulaski Day", which is named after a holiday observed in March to honor a Polish general (apparently there's a large Polish population in Chicago), tells a tale of loss, but instead of a grandfather, this time around it's a young girl, possibly Sufjan's first love. The story of their last few months together is recounted in Sufjan's typical way of revealing very minute details that say an awful lot about the big picture - things like praying over her body but finding out that nothing changes, or giddy little indiscretions like wanting to kiss her and almost touching her blouse. These ruminations give the song a definite teenage setting, and it's commendable that Sufjan is able to wring so much out of the little events along the way to the girl's eventual death from cancer, which really has nothing to do with the holiday mentioned in the title, other than the fact that she passes away on that day. It's a sad song (which makes the breathy, whimsical "ah-ah"s near the end seem a bit ominous or even cynical), but it also asks important questions about the nature of prayer and our devotion to our chosen faith - do we stick with it even when God says "No"?

To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves Shoe String, a Lavender Garland, and Twelve Strong Women
Slow rolling cymbals, beautiful tinkling piano, and mournful trumpet characterize this somber interlude that is either about a city with high levels of radon in its water, or a school district facing charges of racial discrimination. You be the judge.

The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
Only a real man can be a lover
If he had hands to lend us all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another...
Yep, there's actually a city called "Metropolis" in Illinois. It's not the actual setting for the Superman comics and movies, but that hasn't stopped the real-life city from capitalizing on the superhero's image. The song dedicated to this city sounds like Sufjan on steroids - it's almost jarring at first with its jumpy, crunchy rhythm guitar and its static lead guitar line that drones on and on despite the chords changing underneath it. In some ways, it reminds me of some of the crunchier rock songs that we haven't heard from Sufjan since his debut record, A Sun Came. However, he manages to shift back and forth between this mode and a subdued, acoustic verse with flutes and horns floating around, without it sounding awkward at all, which is a testament to his arranging skills. Sometimes the joyful chorus, mostly sung by the women from the Danielson Famile, accompanies the softer music and sometimes it accompanies the harsh guitars, and in both cases, it works. Like many songs about superheroes that I've heard lately, this one seems to de-emphasize the idea of one man rushing into save everything, despite how infatuated we might be with it, and emphasize the notion that society has to work together to better itself. The song ends in a mess of scratchy guitar noise, before the flutes and female vocals come fluttering back in to finish things up neatly.

Prairie Fire that Wanders About
The Opera House where Emma sang!
America! Oh, will it play?
And Santa Claus! The Great Parade!
Peoria! You have it made!
Named after the literal translation of Peoria's name, this brief oddity (is it a song or just an interlude) twists and turns through several names and disjointed phrasings, reminding me of the "shout-out" section of the "Detroit" song. I love the way that the 3/4 rhythm sways back and forth, as if the song is invoking some sort of a spell, and then it gets even weirder, morphing into a rhythmically complex section with glistening bells and whistles that sound like something out of a Christmas play. Then a few more bursts from the woodwinds and it trails off into a sustained organ chord, the way several of Michigan's songs did.

A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
That sustained chord, along with some other dissonant chords and the slowly approaching crash of cymbals, make up this entire track - I think it took me longer to type out the title of this one than to listen to it. I like that it makes reference to an actual life-size maze in the town of Godfrey, but there's really not much here that couldn't have just included on the "Prairie Fire" track.

The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
Oh, how I meant to tease him
Oh, how I meant no harm
Touching his back with my hand, I kiss him
I saw the wasp on the length of my arm...
The drone suddenly cuts out, leaving us with another fluttering song in 3/4 time, possibly the album's most breathtaking musical piece. Over a generous five minutes of folksy acoustic guitar picking and loopy horns and woodwinds, Sufjan tells one of the most ambiguous and potentially controversial stories on the album, one which apparently takes place amidst beautiful cliffs overlooking the Mississippi River. Sufjan sings about a boy whom he kissed as a means of teasing him, and whom he was apparently in love with. It could be that the song is written from a female point of view - it would make sense given how Sufjan writes from the perspectives of many fictional characters - but for some reason it's still an eyebrow-raising lyric. Anyway, there's a hint of sadness to it as the boy apparently suffers from a fatal wasp sting and is taken away from our protagonist. Amidst it all, there are a lot of overlapping vocals singing things like "Lamb of God, we sound the horn, hallelujah! To us Your ghost is born, hallelujah!", which just makes things even weirder. There's a point where the drums come stumbling in, and though it's not terribly loud, it always startles me for some reason, as if it's a glitch in the CD, even though I know it's not. For over five minutes this song twists and turns, a confounding but highly satisfying composition that is sure to spark debates among fans like me who love to obsess over details and possible meanings.

They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Our Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
Logan, Grant, and Ronald Reagan
In the grave with Xylophagan
Do you know the ghost community?
Sound the horn, address the city...
Hey Sufjan, Cake called. They want their bass line back. Just kidding; Sufjan's way too unique to rip off Cake or anyone else. But man, what a funky little rhythm this thing has. It's like a country boy making an awkward attempt to be cool on a disco dance floor, with whimsical strings pointing and jeering at him all the while. Just insert John McCrea deadpanning lyrics about cars, and it'd be a total Cake moment. Except that we have the Illinoisemakers (Sufjan's makeshift choir) deadpanning lyrics about horror movies, spelling out "I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S" as if they're undead cheerleaders, and singing about other random things on top of the lyrics that Sufjan is singing. It's all abut impossible to decipher without a lyric sheet, and even then, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, nor can I figure out what zombies have to do with the history of Illinois. (Horror movie buffs, help me out here.) But forget all that, and remember what I said about not needing to understand in order to enjoy, because this is hands down the most gleefully fun track on the album. The beat is irresistible, the vocals are cool in a creepy sort of way, and it's just one of those things that you have to enjoy with a weird smile on your face.

Let's Hear that String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bushnell
I'd say that's a pretty self-explanatory title - the string interlude from the previous song appears solo to close it out, loud and proud.

In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth
Vying for the title of "Most useless track on Illinois" is this airy, ambient track featuring a distant, solemn, wordless voice that tries to set the mood for the next track. It transitions smartly out of the previous track, but I'd say things are getting a little out of control when you have to have two interludes in a row.

The Seer's Tower
Seven miles above the earth
There is Emmanuel of Mothers
With His sword, with His robe
He comes dividing man from brothers...
You can tell from the pun in this song's title that it's going to have religious allusions. Indeed, this one has a slow, almost ritualistic feel to it as Sufjan takes on a foreboding tone as he sings about a place "Seven miles above the Earth". It's possible that by singing about a building built to be the tallest in America, he's trying to link it to the Biblical Tower of Babel. Anyway, the tone is very sparse here, and as a result it kind of ends up being this album's "Oh God, Where Are You Now?" - a slow, drawn-out number near the end that doesn't hold my interest as much as the other songs do. It's not a bad song at all (I think Sufjan has yet to write such a thing), and maybe it'll mean more if I decipher its connection to the surrounding songs, but for now, I'll consider it to be moderately successful in its attempt to haunt me.

The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders
What have we become, America?
Soldiers on the Great Frontier!
Carpenter and Soldier, one on one
It's the battle, volunteer!
I think we can consider this one to be the grand finale even though we're only on track 20. Sufjan pulls out all of the stops here in terms of complicated arrangements, with more time signature changes than you can shake a stick at (which is really a dumb phrase, since you can shake a stick at pretty much anything; nevertheless, it wouldn't surprise me to see Sufjan write a song one day about the city and state of that phrase's origin, and how learning about it affected his childhood). The primary motif is some sort of an alternating 5/8 and 6/8 thing, with spirited handclaps on "5" and "5, 6", respectively, just to help us keep the beat. To think that Sufjan arranged such a massive parade of instruments (the trumpet and the Charlie Brown-like piano being the most notable) and played the vast majority of them on such a complicated song, and wrote lyrics that fit into the various rhythms, is just mind-boggling. This one might be a tribute to Abraham Lincoln; again, since there's so much going on, it's easy for some of the lyrics to get lost in translation. But the song is definitely a call to arms of some sort, at least in the first section, labeled "The Great Frontier". The second section, "Come to Me Only with Playthings Now", is more subdued and regular, like the second section of the title track was - this seems to be Sufjan's template for the more progressive, suite-like compositions. At seven minutes, this is the album's longest track, and I dare say it's the best track as well. It's amazing to hear it go from its frenetic pace at the beginning to a mellow flourish of piano at the end, and I just can't get enough of that rhythm. I've listened to this one easily 30 or 40 times by now, and I still seem to notice something new every time.

Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the Kings of Swing, to Name a Few
Another self-explanatory title - this brief track takes Sufjan briefly into jazz territory for one of the more amusing interludes, where competing trumpets somehow manage to make a single, monotonous note seem soulful and full of emotion.

Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run
I'll admit that one unfortunate thing Michigan and Illinois have in common is a slightly disappointing ending. Michigan closed with the way-too-repetitive chorus of the otherwise sublime "Vito's Ordination Song". Here, we get an instrumental following an instrumental, one which lasts four minutes and sounds very pretty, but ultimately don't vary itself much. It would actually be a one-note song if you only listened to the intent huffing and puffing of the flutes, which once again bring a swarm of bees to mind. However, there's a little bit of Michigan's "Tahquamenon Falls" and "Alanson, Crooked River" in the wind chime-like sounds that trickle in and out, eventually settling into a skipping 5/8 rhythm as a piano delicately wanders about in the background. It doesn't seem like it should be this long or come at the end, but then again, this is a 74-minute album we're talking about, so I can forgive a tiny bit of B-side material.

I hate to end this review by pointing out a flaw, when my overall view of this album is an uncompromisingly glowing one. I just can't say enough good stuff to do Illinois justice - the whole is really more than the sum of the parts, so maybe it's in analyzing the parts individually that I've made it difficult to accurately express the beauty of the whole. You just have to hear it for yourself, and if you've already heard Michigan, you know what to expect, while also knowing that some pleasant surprises await. As for the question of whether Illinois is better than Michigan - on a technical level, it may well be, but every track on Michigan seemed vital whereas this one has a few that could have been trimmed a bit, so I don't know. It's hard to oust a sentimental favorite that is also a critically excellent piece of work, and I'm kind of splitting hairs at this point. How many decimal places out do you need to take 4.99999... stars before you can just say they both get 5?

Like all of Sufjan's albums, Illinois certainly won't be for everyone - people who only like standard Instrumentation and normal rhythms and songs about safe, generic topics need not apply. Nor do listeners with a strong degree of impatience. Sufjan is more of a muse-pleaser than a crowd-pleaser, but in doing so, he seems to have cultivated a small but dedicated crowd. I'm proud to be among those ranks, and while I have to wonder where on Earth an artist goes from here with 48 remaining segments of a series looming ahead of him, I bet you that wherever that place is, it'll be intriguing, and we'll learn a lot about it in the process. Sufjan's got my vote for Album of the Year 2005 - I realize the year's not even half over yet, but let's just say that anything else yet to release this year will have its work cut out for it.

ALBUM WORTH:
Concerning the UFO Sighting $1
The Black Hawk War $1
Come On! Feel the Illinoise! $2
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. $1.50
Jacksonville $1.50
A Short Reprise for Mary Todd $0
Decatur $1.50
One Last "Whoo-hoo" for the Pullman $0
Chicago $2
Casimir Pulaski Day $1.50
To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region $.50
The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts $2
Prairie Fire that Wanders About $1.50
A Conjunction of Drones $0
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! $2
They Are Night Zombies!! $2
Let's Hear that String Part Again $0
In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man $0
The Seer's Tower $1
The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders $2
Riffs and Variations on a Single Note $.50
Out of Egypt $.50
TOTAL: $24

Website: http://www.sufjan.com


Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Listening