It’s customary for every article on Owen Pallett to start by mentioning some of the high profile artists he has worked as a string arranger for, something that Pallett himself seems to have little problem with, considering both the vast list of well-known names mentioned in this album’s acknowledgements, and the fact that the second track opens with a blatant lyrical reference to Arcade Fire. Now, with the release of this album it has also been necessary for reviewers to mention the reasoning behind his previous recording name – Final Fantasy – and why he’s now dropped it and started using his own. So that’s that part of the review out of the way with.

Undeniably an extremely talented musician (for evidence of this check out the live videos available on the web featuring just him, a viola and a loop pedal, in particular his cover version of Bloc Party’s This Modern Love and his surprisingly heartfelt take on Mariah Carey’s Fantasy), however, his previous two albums were difficult to love, the first – Has A Good Home – was a slight and meek affair, the second – He Poos Clouds – was rather the opposite, a project sprawling with a ridiculous amount of ambition (and as the title suggests an ambitious amount of ridiculousness) based around Dungeons and Dragons and lurching from delightfully bitchy numbers about the gay scene to the writings of Yukio Mishima, and occasionally featuring while atonal string arrangements that weren’t far removed from Bela Bartok.

And, on first impressions Heartland would appear to be more of the same, being a concept album telling the homoerotic story of farmer Lewis from the fictional land of Spectrum, a place populated by mythical beasts and wicked despots – an Agrarian style fantasy that has a definite similarity to the Japanese role playing games Pallett loved as a teenager, including the aforementioned Final Fantasy series.

However, as Pallett sings on the album there is method in this madness. The story – all delivered in Pallett’s soft, sweet, almost childlike voice – is pretty bizarre and hard to follow, but does take a turn into the personal late on as in a Pirandello-esque twist, Lewis goes to fight ‘the Creator’ Owen, and climaxes with the track What Do You Think Will Happen Now? a question applicable both to Lewis and Owen Pallett himself. It’s possible to read the album’s narrative as an elaborate metaphor for Pallett deciding to give up his Final Fantasy persona and create something more adult and personal.

The album is also much more consistent than previous Final Fantasy records, Pallett has said that he wanted to write the album as a full orchestral piece, and he’s done a rather good job, mixing the grand sweep of an orchestra with synths and the occasional electronic beat, and in the process making something that really is most rewarding when listened to from beginning to end. In fact the music is so strong that it doesn’t matter about following the album’s narrative, and in some cases it provides a contrasting undertone to the lyrics, such as in the track E Is For Estranged, ostensibly a sad, self-pitying tale of Lewis’ home life, which is leant a menacing air by the stab of the accompanying strings, sounding rather like something from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho.

Definitely too idiosyncratic to make Owen Pallett as big a success as the artists he’s worked for, Heartland is still the strongest of his solo records and offers an amusing, rewarding and beautifully orchestrated listen.