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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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Nov 17, 2011Powers definitely has the compositional wherewithal to make something special--he just has to put more of himself into it.
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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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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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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, 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 30, 2011The Year of Hibernation serves as a whimsical introduction to the magic of Youth Lagoon.
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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, 2011Youth Lagoon's debut consistently delivers on the suggestion of its appellation: youth.
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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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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, 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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Sep 27, 2011There's a compelling musician under all these layers--of sound and worry--we just need a few more peeled away for us to see him fully.
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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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MojoJun 27, 2012With the skeleton of a dance beat on Daydream, you can picture Powers doing a little skip around his bedroom, momentarily escaping the sad, hermetic beauty that characterises his record. [Jan 2012, p.96]
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Q MagazineDec 15, 2011This debut collection of lo-fi chillwave-esque electronics and introspective song fragments locates itself deftly between Animal Collective's strung-out post-rock and the drum machine-powered sketches of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone.[Dec. 2011 p. 137]
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