Here we are one last time. The final album of the Convocations series. Once again, Sufjan Stevens delivers the soothing sounds of reverberated and delayed synthesizers. The sweet warmth of synth pads and plinky dinky of the arpeggiated melodies.

There isn’t as much atmospheric tension present in this one as some of the others, but it’s a nice bookend to the other pieces. Sometimes you need to go out with a whimper instead of a bang, especially when you are listening to apocalyptic music.

While the music doesn’t really require a lot of attention, I will say that it will be fun to put on the whole Convocations to see how it works as a unit. It might even be fun to shuffle play it, if we want to be really crazy.

Sufjan Stevens flirted with instrumental ambient music with his Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001) album and the collaborative Planetarium (2017). I think he’s really honed the craft to the point where a 49-track behemoth like Convocations doesn’t feel like a waste or too excessive. What I mean is, it feels like all the parts are necessary in their own ways. It would not be beneficial to take the “best” songs from each piece and whittle it all down to a single album of Convocations Lite. I think it is what it needs to be and it appears to be a masterful achievement in an already impressive musical career.