On Ed Sheeran's sixth studio album, “Autumn Variations,” the English singer leaves his series of releases named after mathematical symbols behind.
“Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head, or imploded,” he said in a statement. “When I went through a difficult time at the start of last year, writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on.”
Chalk it up to fatherhood, marriage, or simply residual effects of a global health crisis that has altered the psychology of humanity in increasingly complex and unearthed ways, but it makes for some of the best songs of Sheeran’s career, from the lo-fi “Midnights”, the lamenting reverbed riff of “Punchline,” to the“Autumn Variations” was produced solely by The National’s Aaron Dessner , who Sheeran worked with on “-.
And sure, perhaps that can account for some of the big existential queries here, met with production of a similar depth. Dessner’s National-isms appear in surprising corners, like in the closing minute of “Amazing,” an otherwise uptempo track about the challenges of mood regulation. Sheeran and Dessner have proven to be a marvelous partnership. In the past, Sheeran has spent time demonstrating a masterful understanding of taking pop architecture and marrying it with EDM, reggaeton, Afropop, however you’d describe. But here, with Dessner, he’s returned home to his folk-y pop craft, the world he knows best. And with obvious evolution. And a bit of depression.
If there is a cultural schmaltz associated with Sheeran’s biggest radio hits, they do not apply here. (Well, with few exceptions – like the
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