Swiftkick Press

Rating: 4.5/5

Sans the Final Fantasy moniker, Pallett creates the symphony orchestra of the future.

Released January 12, 2010 by Domino

I’ve been sitting on this album for about a month now because I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. And seeing as it took at least four or five car trips through Princeton, NJ to really get a feel for his last album, He Poos Clouds, I expect this album to continue sounding new and unfamiliar for months to come.

When I describe Heartland as “dense,” I mean it in the most literal sense of the word. The material here has a weight to it; it sags under layers upon layers upon layers of strings, woodwinds, bloops and bleeps, and Pallett’s weird little voice. Songs move through every range of feeling and emotion, and there’s a narrative here about someone named Lewis who, at times, almost seems angry with Pallett for being sung about in the first place. I haven’t even begun to dissect that it’s all about because I’m still enamored with the sound of it all. The frantic arpeggios and rushing string sweeps of “Midnight Directives,” the creeping crescendo of “Keep the Dog Quiet,” the palpable heat of “Red Sun No. 5,” a meditative — and somewhat familiar sounding — “Lewis Takes Action,” and the percussive climax of The Great Elsewhere are just a figurative Side A and it’s already feeling more complete than most albums twice it’s length.

So despite a months’ worth of regular listening, I feel like I still am nowhere near capable of reviewing this album. And that, in and of itself, makes me want to write this review — if not solely for the selfish reason of having more people I can talk to about it.

Whenever you review a new album and put your opinion in stone, there’s always the very real possibility that a year or two from now, you’ll have changed your mind — that you’ll love something you initially ignored, or fall out of love with something you couldn’t stop listening to for weeks. If ever there was a more obvious candidate for such a 180, it’s Heartland, because, frankly, I have no idea how this album is going to sound to me once I finally get to know it.

Reviewed by John Hutchinson

For fans of: Final Fantasy, The Arcade Fire