Youth Lagoon: Heaven Is A Junkyard (Vinyl LP)

In 2016, Trevor Powers shut the door on Youth Lagoon. Stepping back from the alias, Powers found personal transformation at his home in Idaho and released experimental tapes under his own name (2018’s Mulberry Violence and 2020’s Capricorn).

After taking an over-the-counter medication, Powers had a drug reaction so severe it turned his stomach into a “non-stop geyser of acid,” coating his larynx and vocal cords for eight months. By Christmas, he could no longer speak, turning to text messages and a pen and paper as his only ways to communicate.

The growth that followed that nightmare narrowed Powers’ focus. Rather than writing about the world at large, he started writing about home.

With whispers of country, Heaven Is a Junkyard is mutant Americana in a world of love, drugs, storytelling, and miracles - held together by Powers’ voice and an upright piano.

Throughout the album, he stitches together a lyrical style that feels both punk and western. "Prizefighter", the album’s third track, was written while watching a VHS of Drugstore Cowboy. Against a gauzy curtain of lap steel guitar and a CR78 drum machine, he explores the bond between two brothers, leaving it undefined what is fact and what is fiction.

"The Sling", a song Powers refers to as “the album’s core,” is a ghostly and naked piano ballad. We hear each line like a voyeur peeping through a crack in the wall.

Recorded in six weeks with co-producer Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Adele, Gil Scott-Heron), Heaven Is a Junkyard is a work of absolute devotion. A portrait of the God-haunted American West. And a reminder that there is always love in the tall grass.

1. Sometimes, I Swear
   
2. Heartbreak Kid
   
3. Lunar Eclipse
   
4. Discount De Kooning (Last One Standing)
   
5. Primitive Man
   
6. Another Nightmare
   
7. Love To Walk Away
   
8. The Dreamer
   
9. Anonymous in Los Feliz