Youth Lagoon Announces New Album Heaven Is a Junkyard, Shares Video for New Song: Watch

Seven years after retiring the project, Trevor Powers has announced his first new album as Youth Lagoon since 2015’s Savage Hills Ballroom. Heaven Is a Junkyard is out June 9 via Fat Possum. Watch the Tyler T. Williams–directed video for the lead single “Idaho Alien” below.

Following Savage Hills Ballroom, Powers released two albums (described in a new press release as “experimental tapes”) under his own name: 2018’s Mulberry Violence and 2020’s Capricorn. In a statement, Powers reflected on his decision to halt Youth Lagoon in 2016. “I felt like I was in a chokehold,” he said in a statement. “Even though it was my music, I lost my way. In a lot of ways, I lost myself.”

The revival of the project came after an over-the-counter drug reaction caused eight months of harm to Powers’ larynx and vocal cords, temporarily silencing his voice. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to speak again, let alone sing,” he added. “It all felt symbolic in a way…. I’d been swallowing fear all my life and now here it was coming back up.”

“Heaven Is a Junkyard is about all of us,” Powers said. “It’s stories of brothers leaving for war, drunk fathers learning to hug, mothers falling in love, neighbors stealing mail, cowboys doing drugs, friends skipping school, me crying in the bathtub, dogs catching rabbits, and children playing in tall grass.”