The Lamb is a deeply personal album about addiction and death and paranoia, but Lillie West treats those unspeakables like an open secret, finding universality in all of that hurt. It’s her second album as Lala Lala, and the Band To Watch has evolved in the years since her 2016 debut, Sleepyhead, both in her outlook on life and in her sound. The Lamb is confident in its intention — it’s pointedly murky, sharp when it needs to be. Each song bleeds into each other, fractions of the fractured internal landscape that West is excavating.

It’s an album about someone who wants to control everything but finds that everything is out of control. It feels like a parable of sorts, an exploration of someone who has a compulsion to fix everything else before focusing on fixing herself. On the starry closer “See You At Home,” she indulges in this tendency: “It’s OK, I bet I can fix it/ I work really fast with my hand in every pocket,” West sings, her voice reaching deep.

These songs are flickering beacons. West writes with a sort of horror movie mentality about the everyday. It’s fitting that, on the day of its release, the song “Scary Movie” gets an accompanying music video, and with lines like “Spilling blood is ugly/ Unless I know it’s mine” and “This knowing leads to horror/ There’s hands around my neck.” It’s indicative of the persistent terrors that populate The Lamb, but also of the light that can be seen at the end of the tunnel.

Stream The Lamb and watch the “Scary Movie” music video below.

TOUR DATES:
09/28 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle (Album Release Show)
10/02 New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa %
10/03 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall %
10/04 Austin, TX @ Barracuda %
10/05 Dallas, TX @ Curtain Club %
10/06 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger %
10/08 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace %
10/09 Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole %
10/10 San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar %
10/11 Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room %
10/12 Los Angeles, CA @ Resident %
10/13 San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord %
11/01 Indianapolis, IN @ The HiFi #
11/04 Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center #^
11/05 Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room #
11/06 Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar #
11/08 Denver, CO @ Gothic Theater #
11/09 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge #
11/10 Boise, ID @ Visual Arts Collective #
11/12 Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s #
11/13 Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall #
11/14 Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall #
11/21 St. Louis, MO @ Ready Room #
11/23 Detroit, MI @ Loving Touch #^
11/24 Pittsburgh, PA @ Sprit Hall #^
11/25 Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom #
11/27 Portsmouth, NH @ 3S Artspace #
11/29 Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer #
12/03 Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry #
12/05 Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West #
12/07 Nashville, TN @ Exit / In #
12/08 Lexington, KY @ Cosmic Charlies #
# w/ WHY?
% w/ Mothers
^ w/ The Ophelias

The Lamb is out now via Hardly Art.