Review Summary: And there ain’t no magic door, just a bullet from the war
A while back, I watched the 2019 movie
The Vast Of Night, and it left quite an impression on me. Don’t take this a wholehearted endorsement - the plot is rather thin and the ending almost comically unsatisfying. Nonetheless, the film crosses my mind regularly and I look forward to rewatching it a few years down the line. My appreciation almost exclusively originates from two factors: the cinematography, which makes the setting shockingly lifelike, and the atmosphere, which is remarkably successful in transporting the viewer into a vintage small-town Americana scene. These elements bring the movie’s premise together, as the characters and the viewers alike are trapped in a lonely place as darkness falls, with a crackling radio broadcast the only link to the broader world. And maybe, just maybe, there’s something else out there too, lurking in
the vast of night...
This all may seem like an awkward segue into discussion of Youth Lagoon’s comeback album (after an eight year absence). And yeah, it kinda is.
Heaven Is A Junkyard has nothing to do with aliens and classic sci-fi (at least, as best I can tell). But, it’s a record which grabs me in the same mysterious way that
The Vast Of Night did, for reasons I’ll do my best to explain here. First of all, this album is nothing if not atmospheric. Secondly, it captures a similarly isolated sensibility from the American West, even if in this case it owes more to the Idaho origins of Youth Lagoon mastermind Trevor Powers rather than the New Mexico basis of the movie. Third, there’s a crucial interplay between the comforting and the sinister which provides this record its essence -
Heaven Is A Junkyard can largely be described as mellow and dreamy rock/pop surrounding Powers’ semi-mumbling vocals, but there’s a persistent menace to the proceedings lyrically (it’s hard to keep track of how many times the word “blood” appears).
While there’s plenty to enjoy here without delving into the lyrics (“The Sling” is a captivating piano-led piece and “Mercury” is the catchiest song that Beach House never wrote), I’d say you’re missing the real good stuff without paying attention to what’s being said. Powers’ narratives here tend towards a rambling and sometimes hallucinatory style, convoluted and refusing to move in a straight line. The picture they paint, though, is steadily engaging - there’s an undeniable warmth in the prevalent Americana-esque themes like home, religion, and childhood reminiscence, but there’s a reliable dose of the unsettling as well - Powers’ musing of
”I don’t know how it happened, blood filled up the clawfoot tub” in the chorus of “Idaho Alien”, the nightmarish imagery of “Deep Red Sea” about spreading
”blood like butter”, and the whole storyline of “Little Devil From The Country”, which I have no idea how to interpret, but seems to hint at a serial killer. At other times, the nostalgic references to cowboys and 1980 Fords in opener “Rabbit” don’t disguise the disquieting note that
“no one ever saw the blood on the birthday party blouse”, and “Trapeze Artist” lets the uneasy line
“the reaper’s ready for the harvest” float by like it’s nothing. This whole album is like that - it’s exceptionally inviting, but be careful not to get too comfortable.
“Helicopter Toy” is the perfect ending to this album.
Heaven Is A Junkyard is an accessible listen, both because the songs tend to be gently appealing in the most basic sonic sense and because it’s a short record easy to find time for. After a series of songs which are reliably much darker than they first appear, the closer throws away any pretense. It’s booming and simply “bigger”, both musically and in terms of runtime, while feeling immensely grim. There’s simply no escape, but there are much worse albums to be trapped in than this one.
Heaven Is A Junkyard might be a comparatively trim release, but it contains multitudes. As Powers sings in “Trapeze Heart”,
”there was love in the house, believe me”. Is the “believe me” just a conversational term, or a desperate swing at capturing something which was never there? And what about the use of the past tense “was”? I don’t have the answers, but I guess we can keep listening to try and find out. Even if there aren’t any aliens to be found.
