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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Creatures from the Youth Lagoon

youth lagoon

Climax.

If there is one word that could be used to encapsulate the beauty of Youth Lagoon’s debut album, that would be it. “The Year of Hibernation” is Trevor Powers’ attempt to capture the ear of a patient listener. His electric vocals are fragile and his instruments are simple. It’s the tension adding up to the crescendo of auditory rhythm that ensnares the listener.

On the last song of the album, “17,” it took until 2:22, two-thirds of the way through it, for me to grasp the depth of the music creeping into my ears. In this tantalizing moment, the clap-clap electronic percussive beat dropped into the track, and suddenly I knew. It was a moment of musical epiphany.

This guy knows what he’s doing up in his bedroom in Boise, Idaho, I’m certain of that. In poetry, this realization of “muse” is occasionally identified as “duende”. (Look it up.)

Sometimes it takes the beauty of a simply arranged piece of music to remind a listener that, although melt-your-face-off solos and Neil Peart-esque drumming are wonderful aspects of contemporary music, it’s rewarding to appreciate simplicity. Youth Lagoon illustrates that emotion on a masterful level.

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