Review: Troye Sivan is as skilled as he is empathetic on ‘Bloom’

Troye Sivan knows how great pop songs work.

He understands the emotional value of a soaring melody and the way an unexpected texture can refresh a listener’s weary ear.

And as a lyricist he grasps the paradox that eludes so many songwriters: that the widespread relatability of a piece of music — the way it can make somebody, or millions of somebodies, feel like they’re being spoken to — increases in direct proportion to its specificity.

You can hear Sivan exercising all this knowledge on “Bloom,� the second studio album from this former child actor who grew up in Australia and established a following of his own with a YouTube vlog in which he came out when he was 18.

It’s there in the record’s thumping lead single, “My My My!,� where he pushes his voice upward in just the right way as he tells a lover that he’s “living for your every move.� And it’s there in the robot-choir backing vocals floating over the strum of an acoustic guitar in “The Good Side.�

In “Postcard,� Sivan, who’s now 23, tells a familiar story of unrequited affection but deploys enough detail to make it newly believable. You’ve been there, you think as he sings over a rolling piano figure, even if you’ve never had someone ignore the postcard you wrote (in Japanese) from Tokyo.

Recorded with a crew of talented producers including Ariel Rechtshaid, Bram Inscore and Oscar Görres — crafty studio wizards known for tracks that feel modern and classic at the same time — “Bloom� stands rightly to expand the cult-sized audience Sivan developed with his 2015 debut, “Blue Neighbourhood.� (He’s already getting help from no less a booster than Taylor Swift, who invited him onstage at the Rose Bowl in May to do “My My My!�)

Yet as easy as it should be for anyone to appreciate this thrilling and sincere record — truly, there’s no resisting the title track’s euphoric refrain — what might be most admirable about it is Sivan’s determination to make a particular group feel seen.

“I just want to provide for a young audience what I felt was lacking when I was a kid,� he recently told Time, “which was representation of someone living their life.�

Gay kids have found themselves in pop music by straight stars for decades, of course. And pop has always been filled with writers and performers of every sexual identity — one reason the form has historically evolved faster than any other mass medium.

But Sivan is poised to enter the Top 40 mainstream as a novel figure: an openly gay man with no use for the type of coding that earlier artists (like, say, Sam Smith just a few years ago) were compelled to use in an effort to avoid alienating some portion of their audience.

“My boy like a queen / Unlike one you’ve ever seen,� Sivan sings in “Lucky Strike,� with both bliss and pride clearly audible in his breathy singing. “He knows how to love me better / A hit of dopamine, higher than I’ve ever been.�

“Seventeen,� the album’s deeply tender opener, describes a complicated hook-up with an older man in language that sounds free of the burden of upholding someone else’s standards: “Maybe a little too young, but it was real to me / And in the heat of the night, saw things I’d never seen.�

“Bloom� closes with the pretty and slow-moving “Animal,� in which the singer offers “an ode to the boy I love� and looks toward a future in which they’ll “build a home for two.�

It’s a simple image. But imagine encountering it as someone who’s trained himself to read between the lines while listening to the radio.

Or don’t. Sivan is good enough — as skilled as he is empathetic — that he’s still sure to get you.

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Troye Sivan

“Bloom�

(Capitol/EMI Australia)

[email protected]

Twitter: @mikaelwood