In Stores Now: Heartland by Owen Pallett

Illustration by A. Calbet from a French-language edition of Homer's Odyssey, 1897

Owen Pallett (né Final Fantasy) has an impressive new record, Heartland, and I've been listening to it for a couple weeks, waiting for that moment when I feel ready to write about it. But that moment just isn't coming. I've only been familiar with Pallett's first record, Has a Good Home (someday I'll get over its terrible title and buy his second record, He Poos Clouds), but I really wasn't prepared for the complex melodicism and labyrinthine lyrics of this record. It's a compelling listen if not an immediately rewarding one, and I'm drawn back to it again and again, but for now I don't have much in the way of intelligent commentary to share.

Pallett doesn't really ease the listener into Heartland, and that was the first issue I had to deal with in getting to know the album. Heartland begins with "Midnight Directives", an appropriately dramatic number with a jumpy pizzicato-strings and persistent percussion arrangement. Following this song with the Arcade-Fire-quoting "Keep the Dog Quiet" (which also has the over-the-top emotiveness of Pallett's old band) is not a good move, though. And the third track, the brief "Mount Alpentine", is also huge-sounding and opaque.

After this slow start, though, Heartland picks up quickly with a run of great songs that pretty much carries through to the album's understated finale, "What Do You Think Will Happen Now?" The two songs referencing the concept album's main character are the best - "Lewis Takes Action?" has a classic pop song featuring a "Be My Baby" drum intro, and "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" has the album's only big chorus hook. Although these big pop songs do a good job of anchoring the album in a pop sound, they are not the album's only catchy moments by any stretch. The other songs just have a less "usual" kind of catchiness that sinks in bit by bit after a couple listens.

What doesn't really come through after repeated listens (for me, anyway) is the meaning of Heartland's lyrics. Few things are more frustrating than albums that say, "I'm clearly a concept album, but I'm only going to tell you just enough of the story to know there is one." Certain phrases really stick in the mind: "I'll bludgeon 'til the body's cold", "Scissors of fate or the fire of Surtur", "I know it, I do affirm it with overzealous obscurantism." But I find myself focusing on the lyrics without any real rewards for the attention - it's frustrating because Pallett's got a great poetic sense. A little mystery is a good, thing, though, and Heartland probably has the highest level of craftsmanship of any album I've heard this year. And it's easier to take Pallett seriously, now that he no longer refers to himself by the name of a Japanese video game franchise.

"Lewis Takes Action" by Owen Pallett