Over fidgety, impatient keys, Lala Lala \u2013 UK-born, US-based Lillie West \u2013 declares her intention to leave. \u201cGet me out of America,\u201d she whispers, frustrated, on opener Car Anymore. Yet West\u2019s fourth album (and first for Sub Pop) is about stillness \u2013 or trying to fight the urge to run.<\/p>\n
The artwork for Heaven 2 by Lala Lala. <\/p>\n
After darting between Chicago, New Mexico, Reykjav\u00edk and London, West found love in Los Angeles and started to put down roots. But Heaven 2 (produced by Jay Som\u2019s Melina Duterte) is shrouded in uncertainty, with cloaks of reverb, and lyrics buried beneath breathy deflection. Scammer toys with the romantic tension of threatening to split town, over an austere soundscape of purring synths and crisp snare, while Anywave battles a crisis of self \u2013 \u201cIf I existed, I don\u2019t any more\u201d \u2013 across bleary sirens and a spinning drum machine, like a nihilist sibling to Lorde\u2019s Melodrama.<\/p>\n
Closer to the sonic loneliness of West\u2019s recent instrumental album than her pop-driven indie rock singles, Heaven 2 sits in limbo, with a mid-tempo claustrophobia that can feel numbing and repetitive. It\u2019s a shame that the album\u2019s most interesting elements \u2013 an earthy, freeing saxophone from longtime collaborator Sen Morimoto, and snatches of rusted, metallic electronics \u2013 are often confined to a track\u2019s final moments; Tricks stands apart for West\u2019s sudden vocal assertiveness and the aching back-and-forth of a violin. Amid the tension, This City offers a rare moment of release: a soaring drone slices through the sky as West has a gorgeous, cinematic realisation about sticking around: \u201cI wish I was at a party, and you would catch my eye,\u201d she ventures, heart-on-sleeve. \u201cHaving never seen each other, we\u2019d start it all tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over fidgety, impatient keys, Lala Lala \u2013 UK-born, US-based Lillie West \u2013 declares her intention to leave. \u201cGet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-503019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}