Album Review: Heartland by Owen Pallett

January 20th, 2010 • Album Review

Violin virtuoso Owen Pallet has finally dropped the Final Fantasy mantra in favor of his real name and to celebrate, the Canadian has released what might amount to being his best album to date. 2010′s Heartland is an early contender for this years retrospective best of lists, and represents a considerable departure from Pallett’s earlier works.

Obviously the star feature here are some beautiful loops of various orchestral pieces making for a sort of one man orchestra. Pallett has, however filled out his music with a number of different instruments including some well timed clarinet and glockenspiel lines which serve to deepen the album beyond its baroque pop roots into a sort of modern classical piece, which was an innovative and daring choice on Pallett’s part.

I could have done without much of the vocals in their current form. The lyrics themselves seem somewhat trite and the melodic rhythms of the singing often are sung counter to the rhythm of the instrumentation, which detracts from both elements. Pallett’s voice is, nevertheless, an excellent one for the world of indie folk, which he is on the fringe of.

The album dropped on January 12, 2010. Some of my favorite tracks thus far include Lewis Takes Action and Flare Gun; however, each song on Heartland has something that I could provide a positive review for.

This is the kind of album one should really devote the whole 46 minutes to. If you are just planning on listening to it for a few tracks, you may want to look elsewhere as the album’s basic flow is not so permitting of focusing on one or two of the better songs.

What is so powerful about Heartland overall is its orchestral richness, which is reminiscent of the Beach Boys, Arcade Fire, and Animal Collective. The difference in this case is that it only took one person to produce this disc.

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the Co-Host of Saltimbocca and Escargot on WRBC (8-10 PM Sunday)

Tags: Heartland, Owen Pallett

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