The Year of Hibernation
Although Youth Lagoon’s masterfully crafted debut was recorded by a barely 20-year-old Trevor Powers in his bedroom, kitchen, and garage, it shares production values with seminal indie rock albums like Mercury Rev’s *Deserter’s Songs* and The Flaming Lips’ *The Soft Bulletin*. “Posters” opens with a whirlpool of ambient noise funneling under plodding bass and analog synthesizers before electric guitars and a drum machine get things going. In the following “Cannons,” Powers’ vulnerability is accented by slathering his vocals with so much reverb it sounds like he’s confessing his feelings from the depths of a wet cavern. He whistles alongside a keyboard in “Afternoon,” a lilting standout with dynamic layers building a kinetic composition; by the tune’s end it sounds like an oiled machine has run itself into the ground. But there’s more momentum throughout *The Year of Hibernation*; check out “July” with its gradual swells building like a set of hurricane waves or the faster-paced “Daydream,” which finds Powers slipping into a fantasy realm to escape the chronic anxiety that’s plagued him since childhood.
The debut LP from Boise, Idaho's Trevor Powers has all the sonic hallmarks of a bedroom project-- lyrics that reference childhood, thin production, reverb-- but manages to stand out from its lo-fi peers thanks to a sense of wide-eyed adventure.
“It’s just me in my room with my eyes shut,” Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers creaks on “17,” from his debut, The Year Of Hibernation. Powers isn’t kidding: In interviews, the Boise newcomer has spoken about his struggles with crippling anxiety. Which explains why he recorded The Year Of Hibernation in his bedroom all by…
Trevor Powers' debut as Youth Lagoon, The Year of Hibernation, provides the missing link between bedroom-pop contemporaries like Small Black and Perfume Genius and the bittersweet psychedelia of Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips.
Straining to make out the lyrics of Trevor Powers on his full-length Youth Lagoon debut ties the listener closely to Powers and his yearning vocals while revealing The Year of Hibernation’s many, many pleasures.
Eerie, reverb-drenched vocals convey lyrics concerned with a life of anxiety and the awkward emotions experienced by Trevor Powers (yes, I’d have gone for a stage name too) in his twenty-two years o
Youth Lagoon 'The Year Of Hibernation' album review on Northern Transmissions. 'The Year Of Hibernation' by Youth Lagoon is now out on Fat Possum Records
Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation review: Music for daydreamers. The ones paying attention, anyway.