Summer, Half-Submerged

"July" sounds like a memory that’s been sitting in a drawer since adolescence—warped at the edges, emotionally intact. Trevor Powers recorded it in his bedroom in Boise, Idaho, under the name Youth Lagoon, and The Year of Hibernation has that quality throughout: reverb thick enough to swim through, melodies arriving from the wrong direction, an anxiety that circles without ever naming itself. "July" in particular catches something about summer as suspension—days that stretch without resolution, heat that doesn’t break, the feeling of waiting for something that won’t arrive. There’s a loneliness in it that reads as teenage but isn’t exclusive to teenagers. Most people know that particular room, if they’re being honest about it.