Songs have imagery; a pop-punk song can make you picture a group of rebellious teenagers and cars speeding down deserted dirt roads, with the aggressive drums lead you to feel the banging in your chest and the angry passion in your bones. A love song can make you imagine dancing in the rain with someone or make you miss that special person with the help of smooth voices and softer instrumentals.

Troye Sivan’s “Bloom” makes you imagine the classic alternative indie cliche: soft neon lights, milkshake dates with your best friends, and driving down highways with the top down late at night. And on the other side of the spectrum, it also makes you imagine lonely nights and reminiscing old memories in the safety of your room

“Bloom” was released Aug 31, three years after his debut album, “Blue Neighborhood”. The standard album contains 10 tracks and an additional two on the special edition version, sold in Target in the US, HMV in the UK, and Japan.

Sivan first gained traction posting fun videos with already-large influencers and singing covers on YouTube before he was signed with an Australian record label, EMI Australia, in 2013.He  then made his first breakthrough with overseas audiences when his debut single, “Happy Little Pill”, made it onto the US Billboard 200. A year after, “Blue Neighborhood” was released and Sivan cemented his spot in the industry when the album’s lead single, “Youth”, made it to the US Billboard Top 40.

“Bloom” has a mix of both synth-poppy dance and slow-paced emotional tunes. Compared to his debut album, this release is a bit darker and more about Sivan’s defiant experiences as a gay man.

The tracklist starts off with “Seventeen”, which is very synonymous with Sivan’s unique sound. The song is about a sexual experience he had on an online dating app and has that classic build-up that a lot of the songs he’s known for have. It starts off gentle and soft, building up tension and suspense with the synth’s long notes being provided as instrumental, but when the pre-chorus starts, his syllables become more quick and pronounced before finally breaking into the chorus where the drums come in and the key-changes. This leads into the second verses and the rest of the song.

The following track  is “My My My!”, which was released as a single along with “The Good Side”, “Bloom” and “Dance to This” featuring Ariana Grande and “Animal.”

Its place as the second song sets up the rest of the tracklist, seeing as the “Seventeen” and “My My My!” are on opposite sides of the spectrum and really introduce the album’s duality.

“My My My!”, “Bloom”, “Dance to This”, and “Plum” are the more upbeat tracks off the album and include the classic synthetic sounds as instrumentals, which are very on-brand for boppy alternative-indie songs and very fitting, considering the aesthetic Sivan’s music usually falls into.

The ballads, on the other hand, are memorable to this album considering there are more of them.

Sivan’s vocals in “The Good Side” and “Postcard”, for example, are much clearer compared to the others because they are solely backed by acoustics. His annunciations are more prominent since they aren’t clouded by a considerable amount of synth. They’re more emotional and passionate as they’re a bit more, for a lack of a better word, naked than the rest of the track list.

“Bloom” closes with “Animal” and it’s definitely fitting. The song is not as extensive in its range compared to the previous tracks and is very one-way, in terms of tone.

It’s a slower song but it starts off soft and transitions to the closing with half a minute of synth instrumentals following a continuous loop of four notes progressing in a staircase-like manner under three louder synth keys every few bars. The song ends, and thus the album, abruptly with the fourth note finishing under only two of the louder keys and hanging that expected third key so it seems like you’re waiting for more.

For an album released three years after the first, a longer tracklist was a bit expected, with the debut album having 16 tracks on the deluxe, but with only ten songs, it’s a fairly worthy album.

Each song has its own personal story and from a representative standpoint, “Bloom” is definitely important in expressing young love, especially for the younger LGBTQ+ audience. Every song is beautifully procured in a way that it exudes its own vibe and personal imagery that cater to emotions of nostalgia, remorse, and youthful joy.

Sivan has definitely outdone himself with only his second album. The uniqueness of his sound, voice, and lyrics are truly fitting for the personal stories and messages he wants to share with his audience.