Lala Lala: Heaven 2 Review – Depressed Popper Alternative Fights the Urge to Run | music

HeyRestless and impatient, Lala Lala – the UK-born, US-based Lily West – announces her intention to leave. “Get me out of America,” she whispers in frustration at the opening of Car Anymore. However, West’s fourth album (and Sub Pop’s first) is about stillness — or trying to fight the urge to run.

After bouncing between Chicago, New Mexico, Reykjavik and London, West found love in Los Angeles and began putting down roots. But “Sky 2” (produced by Jay Sum’s Melina Duterte) is shrouded in uncertainty, with cloaks of echo, and lyrics buried beneath breathy deflection. Trickster plays off the romantic tension of the threat of dividing the city, over a stark soundscape of purring synths and brittle snare, while Anywave battles a crisis of self – “If I existed, I wouldn’t exist anymore” – via sombre sirens and a revolving drum machine, like the nihilistic brother in Lorde’s melodrama.

Closer to the sonic unity of West’s last album of pop-driven indie rock songs, Heaven 2 sits in limbo, with a mid-tempo claustrophobia that can feel numbing and repetitive. It’s a shame that the album’s most interesting elements – liberated, earthy saxophone from longtime collaborator Sen Morimoto, and bits of rusty metal electronics – are often limited to the track’s final moments; The tricks emerge in West’s sudden vocal assertiveness and the haunting swing of the violin. Amid the tension, This City offers a rare moment of release: a drone soars through the sky while West has a wonderfully cinematic realization about survival: “I wish you were at a party, catching my eye,” she ventures, heart-to-sleeve. “Since we’ve never seen each other before, we’ll start all over tonight.”