Bloom is out now via EMI Australia / Capitol Records
In a streaming-dominated industry hell-bent on producing 15-25+ track mega albums, there’s something immediately drawing about a classic 10-track album. It almost knowingly promises to pack a punch from beginning to end, and Troye Sivan‘s highly-anticipated sophomore album Bloom delivers on that promise in spades. The new album finds Sivan refining the throttling pop-electronica that dominated his breakout debut, Blue Neighborhood, toward a darker, more ambient, and melodic sound. Lyrically, the Australian pop star delivers some of his most tantalizing, vulnerable, and honest lyrics to-date, effectively shedding some of the naivety of his debut effort and making for a rather eye-opening experience. The album also provides a mainstream platform for sub-cultures of the LGBTQ community, while also facilitating Sivan’s exploration of love, relationships, and his own identity.
The album’s opening track “Seventeen,” co-written by Allie X and Leland, finds Troye recounting his first sexual encounters with an older man. “I got these beliefs that I think you wanna break/got something here to lose that I think you wanna take” sings Sivan in the opening lines. Its a track that properly introduces the sexual exploration of Bloom and serves as the perfect prelude to the album’s second track and first single “My My My!,” which soared through the pop stratosphere upon its release in January. The track’s accompanying music video may be one of the best representations of the album, with Troye dancing freely throughout an abandoned warehouse. Its a self-awareness and contagious sense of liberation that sonically, lyrically, and visually continues to course throughout tracks like “Plum,” “Lucky Strike,” “Dance To This” feat. Ariana Grande, and the album’s titular track, “Bloom.”
Aside from the anthemic chorus-driven tracks that shape the album, Bloom should also be recognized for its subtler and intimate moments, achieved first on the mellow and guitar-driven track “The Good Side,” the piano-led “Postcard” featuring Australian singer-songwriter Gordi, and the album’s closing track “Animal.” The latter, which Sivan has described as “an epic, timeless love song about how whipped” he is. The tracks show a softer and more vulnerable Sivan, which as a whole, helps to encapsulate an entirely separate perspective of the Australian’s unapologetic coming-of-age album and personal life. The tracks also make the dichotomy of the album feel effortlessly cohesive and sonically on point, though arriving at the end of a bursting electropop bubble. Helping Troye Sivan to deliver a strongly autobiographical and mature album within 10 tracks.
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