It seems a certain Mr. Sufjan Stevens is on something of a roll. Less than a week after releasing a surprise EP (if a 60 minute set of songs can truly be called an EP) he has now announced the release of his new album The Age of Adz!

Here are the important details about The Age of Adz: 1. “Adz” is pronounced “Odds.” 2. It is to be released on CD on October 12th and LP on November 9th. 3. If you pre-order either format right now from here you will receive an MP3 download of the full album on September 28th.

The official press release on Asthmatic Kitty’s website description tells us that

“the new album sounds nothing like the All Delighted EP (although it shares similar themes of love, loss, and the apocalypse). Nor is this new album built around any conceptual underpinning (no odes to states, astrology, or urban expressways).

We can say it shows an extensive use of electronics (banjos and acoustic guitars give way to drum machines and analog synthesizers), and an obsession with cosmic fantasies (space, heaven, aliens, love), to create an explicit pop-song extravaganza, augmented by heavy orchestration, and maybe even a few danceable moments. Enjoy Your Rabbit meets the BQE. But with songs. Verse, chorus, bridge, backbeat. Gated reverb. Space echo. Get your boogey on.

Try not being excited after reading that.

Sufjan has put out a few random songs and collections of songs in the last couple of years, but The Age of Adz is set to be the true follow up to his 2005 opus Illinois, so it has quite a lot to live up to. If anyone can fulfill the requirements it’s Sufjan, and we couldn’t be more excited, especially as it is effectively only a month until the album is set for release.

Tracklist:

01 Futile Devices
02 Too Much
03 Age of Adz
04 I Walked
05 Now That I’m Older
06 Get Real Get Right
07 Bad Communication
08 Vesuvius
09 All for Myself
10 I Want To Be Well
11 Impossible Soul