Youth Lagoon's first two albums felt introspective at the time: Trevor Powers mused about the posters in his childhood bedroom, his first "it's not you, it's me," and driving his parents' car in a meek mewl that come off as conversational rather than performative. He favored post-production tricks that made him either sound trapped in a well or a bouncy castle, but he always sounded alone, and the music bore none of the visceral signifiers of rock. But he'd likely call his previous work "insular" now, created at a point when he was lucky enough to talk about love, death, and the societal contract as abstractions and avoid dealing with the real shit going on inside of him. After the release of Wondrous Bughouse, Powers cancelled a run of tour dates after the drowning of a close friend. Up to this point, Powers already seemed like a guy who'd bruise from a stiff wind; Savage Hills Ballroom has him feeling everything with even greater sensitivity.
This is first time we can hear what Powers actually sounds like—the piercing clarity of Savage Hills Ballroom has to be a reaction to the muffled bedroom ambience and warped kaleidoscopism that respectively defined The Year of Hibernation and Wondrous Bughouse. And the most immediate revelation is just how aggressive his vocals are. When clouded by reverb and dozens of flange effects, Powers resembled bemused warblers like Dean Wareham and Wayne Coyne. "Officer Telephone" and "The Knower" present Youth Lagoon as a freak-folk torchbearer gone digital, Powers adopting the keening, incantatory tones of Joanna Newsom or Devendra Banhart (and even a melodic glimpse of Tori Amos' "Crucify" on "Free Me"), though without the same kind of supernatural presence.
Powers still sounds barely a third of his 26 years ("we're all babies born too soon," he yelps), but it works in the context of his angriest music, since most toddlers don't know much about restraint either when they first discover the world pushing back against them. With the assistance of Ali Chant, who worked on Perfume Genius' similarly glammed-up and streamlined third album Too Bright, Powers equips himself with the instruments of war—Savage Hills Ballroom is full of layered drums, atonal noise, and horn sections used for both melodic counterpoint and blunt force. Even when the loping keyboards of "Highway Patrol Stun Gun" and "Rotten Human" recall Powers' standard operating procedure, the songs are kinetic, obsessed with forward motion and melodic precision—aspects that are completely new to Youth Lagoon.
Savage Hills Ballroom is also the first time we can hear what Powers actually has to say, and that's by far the greatest risk on a record that's already attempting to redefine Youth Lagoon. Powers shows an admirable willingness to engage with broader societal issues, though the accusatory tone of "Rotten Human", "The Knower", and "Again" open him up to scrutiny the often banal commentary can't withstand: "the clones, they've always said to stay in line," "so we take a pill and trust the doctor's lie," "television soundtrack drones," using "computer" as a verb. "Through aisles of cans you walk/ 'Cause you'd rather spend than grow a crop," he spits on "Again"; there's a possibility he's critiquing his own obsessive habits here, but he eventually shifts to the plural first person and becomes the guy on your Facebook feed posting #hottakes about GMOs.
While Savage Hills Ballroom awkwardly stretches to make universal points from Powers' personal distaste, his personal heartache results in the most truly resonant moments. Tucked within the civic-minded back half, the exceptional "Kerry" is a dramatic elegy to Powers' uncle, holed up in Vegas, on the run from the law and addicted to crack cocaine. Meanwhile, "Officer Telephone" finds Powers in a heightened sense of shock while mourning, the "terrible tone" of ambulance sirens reminding him of a time when they were too late to help. Both of these songs match the devastating emotional impact of "July" and "Dropla" while accessing a darkness he couldn't address directly on The Year of Hibernation or Wondrous Bughouse ("I've felt heaviness creep since I turned 8 years old"). Regardless of the subject matter or the production or the arrangements, the most truly self-searching Youth Lagoon album has Powers realizing he perhaps knew his position of strength all along—the inner child set adrift in the adult world, left to figure it out on his own.
