KeyCMND.com: Owen Pallett
Published by: KeyCMND.com
Date: January 11, 2010
Format: Web (www.keycmnd.com)
Type: Music Review
Owen Pallett – Heartland
Heartland is Owen Pallett’s first record that will not be released under his former moniker, Final Fantasy. On this, his third full-length, first in over three years, Pallett has created a collection of songs that straddles a line somewhere between orchestral, chamber-pop, and electronic. Heartland is a lush, tight, fast moving record that can slip past you if you aren’t listening closely. It’s carried by fluttering strings, woodwinds, and light, but persistent and tight, percussion, held down by moments of big brass, and rounded out by electronic touches that serve to create a smooth sonic landscape within which the other elements exist.
“Midnight Directives” doesn’t take long to kick in. After twenty-five seconds of ethereal instrumentation and before the vocals, percussion and instrumentation come in and set the precedent for the rest of the record. Next is “Keep the Dog Quiet,” a song that begins playfully with a bouncing staccato string arrangement which is constant throughout the track as the vocals come in and out and the other instrumentation swells and opens and retreats. “Lewis Takes Action” is the fifth track and is the album’s first single. It’s based primarily around Pallett’s vocals and a catchy melody as well as a few well-placed hooks to boot.
In a style of music that’s hard to define, which has it’s feet in three of four different pools, and which is a little too specific to live under most far-too-general genre umbrellas, Heartlandexists. It isn’t all classical, it isn’t all pop, it isn’t all electronic, and it isn’t all Andrew Bird (Isn’t he kind of his own genre now?). No matter what it is, though, it’s a step forward in Pallett’s production, musicianship, and maturity from 2006’s He Poos Clouds, and it’s worth repeated listens.
B+