Album Review: Savage Hills Ballroom

Upon first listening to Boise, Idaho native Trevor Powers AKA Youth Lagoon, one may first notice the quality of his voice: high and nasally, yet immensely emotive. It is part of his trademark and makes his music immediately recognizable. While this may be the first aspect of his music to draw one’s attention, it will later become apparent that Powers possesses a natural gift for songwriting and creates music that is emotional, and also deeply human and relatable.

Powers’ debut album, The Year of Hibernation, showcased this talent in many places (including the song “17,” which has become by far his most successful and popular song), but fell flat in some other aspects; for example, many of the songs followed a distinct formula which made the album seem somewhat redundant and one-dimensional. His sophomore album, Wondrous Bughouse, saw Powers experimenting greatly with new sounds, textures and techniques, but suffered from inconsistency, with the weaker songs on the album exhibiting an all-too-large drop in quality from the highlight songs.

However, Youth Lagoon’s third studio album, Savage Hills Ballroom, released on Sept. 25, is a satisfying marriage of the positives of both of the preceding albums. The album brings songs that hit the listener on an emotional level, at a consistent level of quality, with enough variation and experimentation to make it an interesting listen. While it has gone fairly ignored by critics and music listeners, Savage Hills Ballroom is an album that deserves a spot in your playlist.

My personal favorite song on the album, “Highway Patrol Stun Gun,” is a cinematic ballad that builds in intensity over the course of the song, with beautifully layered instrumentation that combines synthesizers with orchestral piano and violins in a way that manages to be very cohesive despite these sounds that seem like they should clash with each other. “Rotten Human,” another highlight of mine, represents a sort of climax for the album, because of an anthemic and slightly unsettling bridge that is somewhat of a pivotal moment for the song and for the album as a whole.

Many of the songs on this album, including “Rotten Human,” deal with very dark themes, which makes sense as Powers has cited the tragic passing of his close friend as one of the factors that inspired this album. This quality is probably exhibited most strongly on the track “The Knower,” where Powers delivers tragic lyrics in his distinctly unsettling tone over an ominous and empty instrumental.

Stylistically, the album finds Youth Lagoon taking a new route, employing the use of traditional rock and roll song structure, most evidently on songs such as “Free Me” and “Kerry,” but also in trace amounts on many other songs throughout the album. Additionally, the tracklist is punctuated–very effectively, I think–by two ethereal piano interludes (“Doll’s Estate” and “X-Ray”) which help the album to seem like a story, and also have a very interesting and three-dimensional sound.

Aside from “17,” Youth Lagoon has been sadly (if, at times, understandably) overlooked throughout his career. On Savage Hills Ballroom, however, he makes a case for himself, showing that he is a talented artist, capable of producing good quality on a consistent basis, and deserves to be recognized as such. Savage Hills Ballroom is a quality album from front to back, and I highly recommend it.