Score: 4/5

Sufjan Stevens is not a genius. Let’s start off this review with that right away.

He is a great songwriter, in fact possibly one of the best in the “indie-rock” game. His ambitious concept albums gained him a ton of publicity, and his other solo works were met with great critical acclaim.

His newest EP “All Delighted People” clocks in at a whopping 60 minutes, though it features only eight tracks. Two tracks last over 10 minutes each, and the rest of the album is almost as long-winded.

This is not to say that the music isn’t up to snuff with Stevens’ old work.The original version of the title track is an orchestral piece where the slow moving harps and string accompany Stevens’ angelic voice as it crescendos and then sinks back down into the background of the song. 

Listening to most of this EP feels like an “Idiots Guide to Indie-Rock,” in two senses. First and foremost, the music is delicately layered and delivers the orchestral flair that bands like the Arcade Fire just can not seem to perfect. Secondly, Stevens knows how to be just the right amount of pretentious. His thinly veiled religious iconography could irritate some listeners, but to those who can put up with it, Stevens delivers high caliber folk-rock.

Stevens utilizes a wide array of instrumentation, but it gets no better than his borderline-wicked guitar solo in “Djohariah.” In the delicate and precious world where “indie-rock” and “folk” collide, oftentimes a guitar solo makes the song too rough sounding or strips it of its aesthetic value. In this case, however, the solo fits perfectly and separates two distinct “movements” in the song. It is not often where a guitar solo represents the high point of a record, but in the case of “All Delighted People,” that solo blows everything else out of the water.

Most people probably wont listen to 60 minutes-straight of one band almost ever. In today’s hyper-meta musical landscape, artists don’t make albums, they write singles and fill the rest out with awful trash. For this reason alone, “All Delighted People” is worth a listen. It is engaging, fun and honestly, great background or studying music. While it wont be in heavy rotation on everybody’s iPods, it certainly has enough merit to warrant a second listen.