(Domino/EMI)

The artist formerly known as Final Fantasy releases under his own name

There’s a time-honoured indie tradition of interpreting a solo artist’s move from their stage name to their birth name as some kind of shift to maturity and honesty – viz. recent comments about Bill Callahan ditching the Smog moniker, or Conor Oberst ceasing to be Bright Eyes. Fortunately Owen Pallett, formerly Final Fantasy, doesn’t take this trope too seriously – despite the earnestness of the title, Heartland isn’t too far from his previous album, He Poos Clouds (let’s be honest, you’d want to use a pseudonym to release an album named that, wouldn’t you?). Indeed, some of Pallett’s more obsessive fans believe that the title is a reference to a ZX Spectrum game of the same title, but let’s not get stuck on computer games: Heartland presents another instalment in Pallett’s ongoing project of combining pop music structures with orchestral accompaniment and his trademark introspective, witty lyrics (in one memorable example from Oh Heartland, Up Yours! the narrator sings “Owen rode me like a Disney kid in cutoffs and a beater”). There’s a complicated scenario involving the album’s narrator, Lewis, and an omniscient God-like figure named Owen, who may or may not be Pallett playing a computer game on the ZX Spectrum, but really it doesn’t matter: Heartland is a unique collection of excellent tracks from a resolutely idiosyncratic artist. Since Pallett’s ‘immature’ video game music has this verve, sense of humour, and musicality, I don’t ever want him to grow up. 

****½

CHAD PARKHILL

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