Album Review: Owen Pallett - In Conflict

Canadian wunderkind Owen Pallett has never been afraid to combine extremes – the saccharine with the maudlin (2010's Heartland), the ridiculous with the sublime (2006's He Poos Clouds under his now forced-into-retirement-for-legal-reasons Final Fantasy moniker). Pallett's proclivity for intricate, embellished song compositions has been the backbone of Arcade Fire's more ebullient, overwrought extrapolations, and he has been a strings-for-hire for contemporaries such as Beirut, The National and Spike Jonze, yet solo Pallett brings forth much more introspective, ultra-personal pop that is equal parts mawkish and confident – a strange yet wholly affecting juxtaposition. Like Sufjan Stevens, Pallett's softly lilting voice plays well on the stereo; unlike Stevens, Pallett's grandiose, garrulous and wryly emotional lyrics and compositions do not.

In Conflict, Pallett's second long-player under his own name, he doesn't really change this trajectory. If anything, the ambitious melding of live instrumentation (with the aid of a Czech orchestra), orchestral synthesisers and Brian Eno boosts Pallett's idiosyncrasies hundredfold. I Am Not Afraid is a strings-piano-and-electronica heavy musing of overcoming real and perceived fears, and the album only builds from there. The Riverbed is a terser affair, a clamorous effort with a marching beat and guitar riff driving Pallett's operatic mores, something Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart might find a kinship with, while the Talking Heads-esque playfulness of Soldier's Rock plays with form as Pallett sings, “Pick up the bayonet/And run it through the stomach of your brother”.

Nothing about In Conflict is easy, nor should it be. This is Pallett's world, one of ingenuity, flamboyance and verve, and no compromises are necessary.