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Nov 15, 2011The Year Of Hibernation is a powerful bit of emotional alchemy, arresting and enchanting in its naked simplicity, and Powers has accomplished a tour de force far beyond his bedroom walls or his 22 years.
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Oct 26, 2011Youth Lagoon will never reproduce anything like The Year of Hibernation. I think in 2011, this is called The Bon Iver Effect. The result of fame is that Powers will never be in this place again. But maybe that's best.
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Sep 29, 2011The record mixes feelings of protection and safety with the tug of adventure and wraps it in compulsively listenable music that explodes at just the right moments.
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Sep 27, 2011There are only eight songs on Hibernation, but each track goes from murky depths to total transcendence as Powers, the wizard behind the curtain, attempts to dream himself out of the bedroom.
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Nov 7, 2011It is both a captivating listen and a terrifying one: Powers was 22 this year, but his voice carries all the experience of a man thrice his age.
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Oct 14, 2011The Year of Hibernation occupies many spaces at once, a seeming contradiction that makes better use of its incongruous pieces than most records do of its complimentary pieces. The result is both mournful and joyful, but totally enjoyable.
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Sep 30, 2011While The Year of Hibernation doesn't rocket into the stratosphere so much, it's still an exemplary debut.
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Sep 30, 2011With only eight tracks and a run-time just over half an hour, this debut is a light one but hits like a featherweight champ.
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Sep 27, 2011Youth Lagoon's debut consistently delivers on the suggestion of its appellation: youth.
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Sep 27, 2011Delivered in a frail squawk recalling Seattle singer-songwriter Perfume Genius, his coming-of-age songs carve intuitive, idiosyncratic paths (spidery guitar, buzzing electronics) to mountaintop indie-rock catharsis.
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Sep 27, 2011A quietly remarkable debut, The Year of Hibernation is equally suited to hiding underneath the covers and throwing them off to face the day.
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Oct 7, 2011Perhaps the album hits its heights a bit late, but when Youth Lagoon's full confidence is on display, it's hard to turn away.
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Sep 30, 2011The Year of Hibernation serves as a whimsical introduction to the magic of Youth Lagoon.
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Sep 27, 2011His voice is something of an acquired taste but, this minor caveat aside, The Year Of Hibernation is a genuinely unique debut.
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Nov 17, 2011Powers definitely has the compositional wherewithal to make something special--he just has to put more of himself into it.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 50 out of 54
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Mixed: 3 out of 54
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Negative: 1 out of 54
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Mar 6, 2013
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Oct 8, 2011
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May 29, 2023