Owen Pallette - Heartland

...or maybe the artist is Final Fantasy... it depends on where you're getting your product. Owen has had some issues with the video game people, so it seems like iTunes is just getting the inevitable out of the way. Owen wants to surely make his own name anyway.

Your first inclination is to make the Rufus Wainwright comparisons. Owen's voice often has an operatic quality and there's a grand baroque pop sensibility making the thing fierce as all get out. The strings are often quite overpowering, but I also like that quality about Rufus. But that all dissipates after track three.

A difference is that Owen layers all of his songs rich overlayer with an electronic subtext. The Philharmonic playing along to a drum machine and synthesized chords. That part didn't work for me, nor did the parts where Owen tones it down to Beck-mumble level. It became less mopey-cool and just dynamicless, which is a word I just made up. His monotone can reach ridiculous levels, like on "The Great Elsewhere", which sounds like Christopher Cross got an industrial hard on.

And like all orchestral pop "composers", Owen breaks out his inner-Brian Wilson to make a Pet Sounds influenced "Lewis Takes Action". It's got all the string plucks and melody crossfading of "God Only Knows", but without the warmth of the Brothers.

It didn't even take me 3/4th of the record to determine that Owen is little more than Adult Contemporary for the hipster crowd. Pitchfork can suck 86% of my dick.

It was right about the time of this realization that the most exciting track came up. "Flare Gun", as an instrumental, would be a great Bond theme song. Even Owen's placid/I-just-woke-up vocal doesn't weigh it down. He could stand to hire Shirley Bassey though. Far too little too late, though. (2 of 5 stars)