Heaven 2

Lillie West spent the gap between Lala Lala records bouncing from Taos to Iceland to London to L.A., and you can hear every mile of that restlessness on Heaven 2. Co-produced with Jay Som's Melina Duterte, the album kicks off with "Car Anymore," a track that layers jittery piano, punchy brass, and Sen Morimoto's saxophone into something that feels like a frantic departure, West announcing she wants out of America before the song even finds its footing. It sets the tone for a record that refuses to sit still. But the surprise here isn't the motion; it's the moments where West actually lets herself land. "Even Mountains Erode" pairs slacker-pop drums with a vocal delivery so flat and unbothered it somehow makes lines about missing your own life hit harder than any belted chorus would.

The album's range is what makes it so rewarding. "Tricks" and "Scammer" pull things into stranger, more atmospheric territory, giving the record a moody texture that pays off when the energy surges back. The title track builds into a massive, grinding synth outro that feels like some kind of electronic rapture, and "Does This Go Faster?" is a sneaky gut-punch. You'll want to shout the hook until you actually hear what you're singing along to. Then there's "Arrow," sampling La Femme's "Pasadena," which is the closest thing here to a pure summer banger, propulsive and sweat-drenched in the best way.

What holds Heaven 2 together isn't any single track but the arc underneath all of them: someone who spent years running finally wondering if she even wants to stop. Dirt, literal and metaphorical, shows up across nearly half the tracklist, a recurring image that gives the album a tactile weight all the synths and electronic production might otherwise lack. At 33 minutes it doesn't waste a second, and that tightness is a gift for a record this emotionally loaded. It's West's Sub Pop debut and easily her most sonically adventurous work, but the ambition never drowns out the vulnerability. She's still writing about the same stuff, sobriety, identity, the itch to blow up your life. She's just finally doing it from a place that feels like solid ground, even if she's already eyeing the door.

“it doesn't waste a second, and that tightness is a gift for a record this emotionally loaded. It's West's Sub Pop debut and easily her most sonically adventurous work, but the ambition never drowns out the vulnerability.”