The Ascension is the eighth solo studio album from singer, songwriter and composer Sufjan Stevens - and the long awaited follow-up to Carrie & Lowell. Sufjan says the foundations of the album are "a call for personal transformation and a refusal to play along with the systems around us." And its first single America stands as "a protest song against the sickness of American culture in particular." "Don't do to me what you did to America," Sufjan sings. "Don't do to me what you do to yourself." America may feel apt for the times, but it was written six years ago-originally worked on during the making of Carrie & Lowell. Sufjan re-recorded the song and spent the last two years writing and recording the rest of the material on The Ascension almost entirely by himself on his computer-working mostly with a drum machine and handful of synthesizers-using "America" as its thematic template. Sufjan says: "My objective for this album was simple: Interrogate the world around you. Question anything that doesn't hold water. Exterminate all bullshit. Be part of the solution or get out of the way. Keep it real. Keep it true. Keep it simple. Keep it moving." The result is a "lush, editorial pop album" - as Sufjan describes it - that finds us all at a "terrifying crossroad."