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Loss can alter a person. Whether it’s reinvention, recollection, or flat-out despair that hits the hardest, the death of a loved one often times has a profound effect on an individual. In the case of Sufjan Stevens, the feelings resulting from his mother’s death in 2012 became the creative fuel for Carrie & Lowell, his most masterfully put-together musical release to date. However, this claim does not come without its irony. The album, an emotionally-baring open-book chapter of Sufjan’s personal life, is also the artist at his most torn-apart. Detailing childhood feelings and the difficult relationship he had with his late mother, Sufjan lays out his experiences without expectation, covering a wide spectrum of human emotion. Struggling with alcoholism and bipolar disorder before her untimely death to stomach cancer in 2012, Sufjan’s mother Carrie (along with his stepfather Lowell, who now works at the label that put out this very[...]