Youth Lagoon

Tom: Musically, this month has been a haze for me and I've just been sludging in it. It's not that the music I've been linstening to is horrible, it just hasn't grabbed me. And if I'm not enthusiastic about music then I sure as fuck aint going to write about it....or share it. 

Quality. Not Quantity. 

It's precisely the reason all our album reviews are above 7 stars. When you come to SYFFAL it's not about IF an album is good or bad. It's about HOW GOOD an album is and HOW BAD we want to pleasure ourselves to it. 

I'm not sure how Del has been feeling about music this summer, but this Youth Lagoon has lifted me above the smog layer and allowed to take a huge breath of air. It's like a lavender scented fart through a bleached cornhole. So fresh. So crisp. And it cleanly spritzes like Febreze. 

TSSSSssssst. TSSSSssssst.

I'm going to capture this feeling in my cupped hands and throw the dirt over to Del. What do you think Del? Why is Savage Hills Ballroom so damn refreshing? 

Del: Tom, you're not sure how I feel? Why must you rest on a throne of lies!? You know I have so many feelz for this Youth Lagoon album!  I invited you to dance with me at Savage Hills Ballroom the minute I copped this album.

OK, now that we cleared that up let me try to explain why you might find it so damn refreshing. I think what stands out right away, and makes this album so damn impactful, is the juxtaposition between Trevor Powers' (made up name?) wounded man lady vocals and the sprawling swirling sonic highway he drives us around. So many speeding ups and crashing downs throughout the Savage Hills. The duality of this music drop kicks your left brain while massaging your right. Or vice versa maybe. I'm not a doctor so I'm not really sure.  Either way this is the best album of my right now period which pretty much covers every album since the Tame Impala release.

Tom: *SNAP* *SNAP* Del, PAY ATTENTION. Eyes up here....not on my perfectly scultped chin! I asked you how you felt about music in general this summer. I know you've already lubed up thrice to the new Youth Lagoon album.

AND because it took you 3 days to reply to my initial thoughts, I had time to come up with my own explanations behind my feelings of refreshnessment. And they are 2 fold:

1. Trevor Powers (definitely made-up name) is in a world of his own. Listening to his albums is like watching him live his life in a snowglobe full of gum drops in the shapes of houses and an uncleaned litterbox for his cat named Mr. Whiskers. It should be no surprise to a fan of Youth Lagoon that nothing really sounds like Youth Lagoon. From a modern day music standpoint I find his unique sound refreshing.
2. Savage Hills sounds different than Powers's previous albums and I'M ALL ABOUT this evolution. This album is sonically 'crisper' because he dropped a lot of the lo-fi. And the songs (while still experimental) are SO melodic and as a result more listener friendly. Now, I have no qualms about lo-fi or avant-garnishes (I made that up), but he's drawing me in to this uncharted territory, and I also find that refreshing.. 

Del: Hahahaha.  I took my time because I was buried under sound, brah! Seriously though how good is this damn album?! In a quarter where we have or will see releases from Disclosure, Chvrches, your girl LDR, Metric,  and others I will be powerless to give them a listen. I can't pull myself from the Savage Hills Ballroom. There's a gravity to it that holds you tight. A tractor beam on full blast that won't let you wrestle free.  The 'Highway Patrol Stun Gun' is a true and real thing. It is a weapon of mass abduction and I never want it to let go. 

Tom: For me Savage Hills Ballroom is in this year's top 5. And how dare you call Lana Del Ray 'my girl'. 

There are so many great and complex tracks on this album. You mentioned 'Highway Patrol Stun Gun'. The build on the opening track 'Officer Telephone' physically tickled the inside of my stomach at around the 2.00 mark. 'Rotten Human' is depressingly introspective and the drums give me pleasant memories from 1999 because they remind of that Baz Luhrman song 'Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen.' 

Yet.

YET. 

YET, DEL. I keep getting drawn into the piano ballads. Every time 'Doll's Estate' or 'X-Ray' comes on I feel paralyzed. I instintively stop what I'm doing and stare out the window to ponder things. I wonder: why do we clip certain dogs' tails, but not others? Why does Captain Crunch scrape the roof of your mouth? How has the mass chemical prodcution of salt influenced the global economy?

Am I alone here?

Del: So many questions. I'm going to leave those mysteries unanswered for another time and another face. For now you are alone. And you should embrace that shit. All I've wanted this week is for some Del alone time at the beach with this fucking album and maybe a Nalgene bottle full of mimosa and a percocet. That's all the baggage I need to dance around my soul in the Savage Hills Ballroom.    

Top 5 for 2015 indeed.

Tom: I'd ask for you to pick a favorite song, but it'd be a one-sided task because I can't pick one. I just love to listen to this album from front to ass and then repeat. So instead, give me your offical star rating. 

I'm at a 9.5, but because we aren't Pitchfork I guess I'll round up to 10.

Del: I cannot pick a favorite either....I can pick a least favorite easy. Track 8. Otherwise it is a 10