Plumbiferous Media

Toron­ton­ian singer-songwriter Owen Pal­lett has been known as Final Fan­tasy since his 2005 debut album, Has a Good Home, but has quite recently (just under a month ago) switched to releas­ing music under his own name - just in time for his newest LP, Heart­land, a con­cept album based around ” a farmer named Lewis and the fic­tional world of Spec­trum.” Pal­lett uses his expe­ri­ence with two pre­vi­ous albums (includ­ing the Polaris Prize-winning He Poos Clouds) to craft a fas­ci­nat­ing nar­ra­tion - though not with­out some musi­cal flaws.

For much of the album, Heart­land is just what you’d expect from a good com­poser, espe­cially one who was until so recently known as Final Fan­tasy. The open­ing track is syn­thy, quirky, and adven­tur­ous, both in that it is quite unique and in that it dra­mat­i­cally leads the lis­tener through the first part of Lewis’s story. But while there are gen­er­ally inter­est­ing inno­va­tions such as the descend­ing drum lines on “Red Sun No. 5″ or the inter­ac­tions between the highs and lows of “Flare Gun,” to which the vocals serve as a coun­ter­melody, Pal­lett does for a good por­tion of the album aban­don his amaz­ing, dense, orches­tral flair in favor of tracks that end up devolv­ing into bor­ing rep­e­ti­tion, length­i­ness, and an attempt at catch­i­ness that only occa­sion­ally suc­ceeds, and often ends up ruin­ing the track. “Lewis Takes Action” is the first instance of this type of less-desirable track.

Owen Pallett’s voice car­ries a pure, clear air through­out Heart­land, pro­vid­ing a soar­ing sound above the orches­tral base. As with much of his music, Pallett’s voice is often the most strik­ing sound, even among the most active musi­cal sec­tions, which cre­ates an excel­lent con­stant thread through the album. Accord­ingly, the vocals are given ample chance to build up the gor­geous ambiance they take on through­out Heart­land. Pal­lett tells the com­plex, radi­ant tales of Spec­trum with incred­i­ble life, and so unsur­pris­ingly his vocals are one of the best parts of Heart­land.

Beau­ti­fully descrip­tive lyrics have long been part of Owen Pallett’s music, and Heart­land is no excep­tion. The album’s main char­ac­ter, Lewis, has his story and that of Spec­trum told in twelve dif­fer­ent ways, each focus­ing on a dif­fer­ent point or scene in his strangely philo­soph­i­cal tale. But Pal­lett has not only told the story of the album mas­ter­fully, he’s done it with a vari­ety of absolutely amaz­ing lines, from the cho­rus on “Oh Heart­land, Up Yours!”: “A con­cate­na­tion of locusts / And the farm­ers are los­ing their focus / On the pitch of the Aven­roe grasses / I will sing, sing, sing to the masses / Oh Heart­land, up yours!” to “If pathos is borne / Borne out of bull­shit / In for­mal attire” on “E is for Estranged,” to the superbly self-reflective “And as for me, I am a vec­tor, I am mus­cle, I am bone.” In its sto­ries and in the way they’re told, Heart­land is supreme - poetic in Pallett’s writ­ing, with a sub­lime sense of humor that makes it all the more rewarding.

While not every track is a musi­cal suc­cess, the album is filled with an immense amount of diver­sity. Tracks range from the almost West Side Story Prologue-esque sound begin­ning “Keep the Dog Quiet” that is then off­set by Pallett’s voice, cre­at­ing a beau­ti­ful, mys­te­ri­ous, and won­der­fully dark track, to the slower, del­i­cate, and amaz­ingly orches­tral “E Is for Estranged.” “Mount Alpen­tine” is immensely dra­matic, “Flare Gun” is fun and catchy, and “Oh Heart­land, Up Yours!” plods along, telling sto­ries not only through lyrics, but in the music itself as well.

There’s no way around it, Pallett’s story of Lewis has woven a great album. Heart­land’s vocals very infre­quently dip out of tune, but are gen­er­ally ter­rific. The lyrics are even bet­ter. Com­po­si­tion­ally, Heart­land is some­times repet­i­tive, but in gen­eral, amaz­ing. Owen Pal­lett has used as many instru­ments as pos­si­ble and spans as large a fre­quency range as he could muster to craft his album, and it cer­tainly doesn’t go unno­ticed. Heart­land is cer­tainly not with­out flaws, but in essence is a very pow­er­ful album.

This post is tagged 90-100, Owen Pallett