(2023) Youth Lagoon - Heaven Is a Junkyard    


Review:
Before Youth Lagoon was put on hiatus, Trevor Powers' dream pop project was defined by its ethereal intangibility. It possessed a sound and style that was a product of its time, nestled nicely alongside the likes of Beach House and like-minded projects. However, it was hardly unique — a self-described creative chokehold with no end game, which made putting Youth Lagoon on the back burner an understandable decision.  But after half a decade of releasing experimental tapes as simply Trevor Powers, he realized the chokehold was of his own making, a product of fear. With this recognition, Youth Lagoon has risen from the grave with Heaven Is a Junkyard, a haunting but charming comeback that brings the idea of home into focus in order to define the familiar. But to return home, Powers had to lose his voice altogether, literally (In 2021 he suffered a reaction to a medication that nearly cost him his voice) and metaphorically, and it was an arduous journey that made him arguably stronger. Touched with a renewed outlook on life, Powers set off in search of love and paradise in a place both obvious and unexpected — Idaho. "Heaven is a junkyard / And I'm at home," Powers repeats with ghostly realization as a piano tiptoes off into the distance to close out "The Sling." There's nothing conventionally glamorous about Idaho life, or at least the part that Powers calls home. It's a place haunted by prayer, tradition and the customary trappings of a religious hotbed that attempts to usher in thy kingdom. If heaven is a place like Idaho, where teenagers tote guns, dusty rural flatlands sprawl miles, and "junkies lie on mattresses in the backyard," then by God, this already-but-not-yet paradise is indeed a junkyard. But it's Powers' junkyard, and this is his attempt to reconcile and find beauty despite it all. Once upon a time, it wasn't always evident that a human with a beating heart was behind the gauzy frailty that distinguishes Powers' voice. Youth Lagoon came across as curiously distant and distorted — an immaterial echo from the past whose purpose was to make you feel but rarely to say something of tangible substance. But on Heaven Is a Junkyard, Powers' unsteady quivers are unmistakable. His voice has been through the wringer after nearly losing it altogether, but it vibrates and startles through the stillness of his creaking piano and the record's consuming hiss and hum, rendering the artist more human through the haze and allowing his stories of brotherhood, sadness, loneliness and small-town lore to strike a chord with a more remarkable pluck. On tracks like "Mercury," one can hear Powers finally come into focus. The moving dream pop gem opens with a soft percussive loop and handclaps, with Powers' voice even softer as he opens the track with a sentiment of fear: "Steal my words / In the world, I'm afraid...", but this restraint is short lived. The song is quickly built upon with soaring strings as Power's rickety falsetto rises ever higher with an impassioned chorus that captures the question that informs the record's statement of a title: "Does heaven glow / Glow like Mercury?" No, it doesn't — not in Idaho, at least. But that won't dissuade Powers from loving and accepting it and making this junkyard home. Where previous efforts encouraged daydreaming, untethering oneself from the grimness of reality and the hauntings of everyday life, Heaven Is a Junkyard does the opposite. Rather than examining the world at large, Heaven Is a Junkyard takes us into Powers' home and inside his heart, once so secret and impenetrable. It's a bit messy, as home often is, and listeners will often feel like they're peering into a diary from afar. Heaven Is A Junkyard will make you feel its spiritual tone and tenor, a superpower that has laid dormant with Youth Lagoon, now awakened by Powers finally finding his voice." — exclaim


   


Track List:
01 - Rabbit
02 - Idaho Alien
03 - Prizefighter
04 - The Sling
05 - Lux Radio Theatre
06 - Deep Red Sea
07 - Trapeze Artist
08 - Mercury
09 - Little Devil from the Country
10 - Helicopter Toy


Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop
Country: Idaho, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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