Youth Lagoon announces first album in eight years with new single "Idaho Alien"

Just over seven years since Powers disbanded Youth Lagoon, Powers has returned with news of his first album under the moniker, and has unveiled the first single from the new full-length, which is titled "Idaho Alien" and lands with a Tyler T. Williams-directed video.

Powers says of the track, "I wait for good mistakes. I spend a lot of time feeling around in the dark. For every thousand ideas I have, I have one good mistake. I was fuckin' around on the piano one day and found ‘Idaho Alien.’ It felt like it already existed and I just dug it up."

He adds, "I’ve always loved old hardboiled crime novels. They’re twisted but pure. "Idaho Alien" comes from that space. Home often feels like a Jim Thompson book. One of my neighbours smokes meth all day and mows the lawn at 2:00 am. Her boyfriend lived in a tent in her backyard, and one day she locked him out of the house so he went as far as trying to stab her. He got sent to prison for 10 years. She told me she still loves him, and I told her she deserves better. The last time I asked her not to mow the lawn at 2:00 am, we wound up talking about aliens and Subway sandwiches. Every November, a church group rakes her leaves and tells her about Jesus. I don’t think it’s working."

Heaven Is A Junkyard is Powers' first album as Youth Lagoon since 2015's Savage Hills Ballroom. He says the album is "about all of us. It’s stories of brothers leaving for war, drunk fathers learning to hug, mothers falling in love, neighbours stealing mail, cowboys doing drugs, friends skipping school, me crying in the bathtub, dogs catching rabbits, and children playing in tall grass."

Tracklist:

1. Rabbit
2. Idaho Alien
3. Prizefighter
4. The Sling
5. Lux Radio Theatre
6. Deep Red Sea
7. Trapeze Artist
8. Mercury
9. Little Devil from the Country
10. Helicopter Toy