Joanna Newsom - Ys

It's been a while but I'm still absorbing this record. It certainly takes the listener on a journey, both within the span of each individual track and across the album as a whole, and it's a big step forward from The Milk-Eyed Mender. But is it better? I'm not sure. Taken together, the two albums are a good instancing of the folly of comparisons of that kind. Ys demands to be taken on its own terms, and not in the somewhat shrill, self-conscious way of its predecessor (which, incidentally, I liked a great deal, though I never felt the need to listen to it much after the first month or so) - it's subtle about it, but unequivocal. One that really needs to be lived with, and I'm not sure if I have the capacity or the inclination to immerse myself in such a record just now.