For all the sprawling, inspirational art borne of searching, yearning, and seeking – music of adventure – there’s precious less work aimed at providing comfort and solace in retreat or settling.
Enter Lala Lala’s Heaven 2.
Gradually making inroads, particularly since 2018’s bracing, biting The Lamb, Lillie West has proved a restless artist, leading to 2021’s intimate yet sprawlingly ambitious I Want the Door to Open.
Now on Heaven 2, however, West seems to be finding inspiration in acceptance, if not acquiescence; in stillness.
Opening with an exit, “Car Anymore” is grounded in our current American reality: however disinterested it truly is in politics, there’s an acknowledgment of the unavoidability of it all. There’s no escaping our mess, try as we might. When West sings, “Give me one more chance, America,” she’s in fact singing about a person, but the juxtaposition is intentional. In 2026, the blending of the personal and political has sunk into a miserably mired, noxious blend.
It’s no wonder, then, that she gets away from it all.
Jokingly referred to as her “diss” track, “Mountains Erode” is a proper centerpiece (of an impressive several), and the moment in which the acceptance begins to kick in. “Well, if there’s nothing for me / then I’m willing to leave / I’d rather live true / than wait on you / no, I’m not opposed: even mountains erode.” Lest it be mistaken for fatalism or defeat, to the contrary, it’s a moment of acceptance alongside valuing her own worth over fleeting hope. Embracing what one has on their own, rather than being baited along waiting for another to change.
Heaven 2 proceeds in this manner, expertly arranging prickly pop all in the name of seeking a space for oneself. The music itself feels intentionally designed to juxtapose her own search for belonging, lending it an organic duality.
Indeed, West, notably aided by co-producer Melina Duterte (that’d be Jay Som, folks), seems an artist overwhelmed, and practically giddy, with ideas, the skittering keys of the opening track setting the stage for what proves to practically be a mad dash of a listening experience. “Arrow” throbs and pulsates with life, seeming to rapidly circle around West’s occasionally seemingly disembodied vocals, advancing and recoiling by turns, only things for affairs to grind to a wary, wounded halt on the brief “Tricks”. Once more all this serves to underscore Lala Lala’s journey here.
Fits and starts. Good days and bad days. Weathering things as best she can. Is there any other way to live? This is an album full of, and fueled by, a palpably current sense of anxiety and lack of (or at least being denied) belonging. It may not be the closing track, but “Does This Go Faster?” seems to serve as both Heaven 2’s thesis and key question: “Nothing on Earth is free / even in ecstasy / How is the day after the party?” Was going worth it? Staying in can be nice. You might not get very far, but perhaps you’ll be lucky to learn something about yourself.
