Sufjan Stevens seems to've been lumped in with this new- or avant-folk movement that's supposedly happening right now, but I'm not entirely convinced - to me, on the basis of this album at least, he seems more in line with the whole orchestral- or chamber-pop thing, albeit with definite folky elements. It's all pretty, lush, warm horns, strings and woodwind, with vocals either mildly jaunty or mildly melancholy, reminding me sometimes of Belle and Sebastian (especially the vocal and melody on "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!"), or perhaps Architecture in Helsinki ("The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders", say) and even, on "The Seer's Tower", of Will Oldham.
I reckon that Illinois is a really good record, but I don't find it amazing or revelatory; in lots of ways, I feel similarly about it to the way I do about a comparable one from last year, Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender. It works best as a whole - even at a sprawling 74 minutes - but songs that I particularly like at the moment include "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" and "Casimir Pulaski Day" (both of which I'd already heard), "Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother", "Chicago", and the oddly-named (though by no means unique in this oddness) "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhhh!". On that note, also boasts one of the best closing song titles that I can think of in "Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run".
