The hyper-prolific Sufjan Stevens (who's vowed to record albums highlighting the history and attributes of every state in the U.s.- two down 48 to go) has now released a landslide of extras and outtakes from the critically lauded Illinois sessions. The majority of these tracks have the Renaissance-Fair thing that colored Illinois, but if you didn't particularly care for the horns, violins, recorders and flutier songs you can probably go ahead and skip this one - you're likely to become Ill-annoyed.

From the first track "The Avalanche," you'd think you've been dropped near a Shakespearean Festival, and may find yourself overcome by the desire for a toothsome wench offering tall steins of ale. The songs I enjoyed the most were those that sounded like they were intended for this eon - the slower Kings of Convenience-style acoustic tracks like "Saul Bellow," "The Mistress Witch from McClure" and "The Pick-up." However, I also found myself tapping a toe to the more upbeat trip-outs like "Dear Mr. Supercomputer" and "The Henney Buggy Band." Of course, there were also those songs that were just flat-out weird but started growing on me after a few spins. For example the hippie-esque tambourine-jangler "Carlyle Lake" and the dream-pop clap-along "No Man's Land." The album leaves off with a couple crazy five-minute-plus tracks like "Pittsfield," which goes from a nice acoustic-guitar-and-piano track to a surreal carnival freakout with closing distortion effects, and "The Undivided Self," which is a digitalized, psychedelic acid trip all the way through.

First of all for an outtake collection 76 minutes of running time seems a bit much, for the hardest core fans of Stevens I'm sure it's all being relished like mannah from heaven, but for run of the mill fans avalanche is a good title - alot of good crystal snow comes flowing down, but below the surface there's a bit of muck to sift through.