by Kris Handel
Feats of Engineering, the debut album from Fantasy of a Broken Heart, the duo of Bailey Wollowitz and Al Nardo, has been in the works for a long time and is now ready to announce itself with panache. The band have been working on the record for nearly five years and have faced multiple obstacles (namely a global pandemic) mixed with an overflowingly busy schedule with other musical compadres. Fantasy of a Broken Heart are unafraid to throw wonky guitars and synth lines against the wall and patch together compelling sonics that show themselves to be quite unpredictable yet completely fascinating. The contrasts between Nardo's sweet and perky vocals with Wollowitz’s semi-spoken intonations creates various moods and levels for the listener to process while entering a musical wonderland of sorts.
Some of the most strikingly noteworthy tracks on the album are explosive and charged with a relentless energy found on songs like the opening track of "AFV". Synths explode around frantically dueling guitars as Nardo and Wollowitz’s vocals alternate between melody filled connections and moments of disparate stylistic clashes as the music gallops around them kaleidoscopically. "Ur Heart Stops" is one of the sweeter moments on the record as Nardo's vocals switch from bright harmonies to snide asides while the instrumentation veers back and forth from a loose and charming rhythm to intensely anxious churning. The duo express a sense of wonder as well as moments of concern and disconnection from the hustle and bustle and constant movement of city life.
"Doughland" is immediately catching yet with a comparatively more relaxed and dreamy approach that has a sense of Bowie-filtered through Destroyer. Once again synths swarmingly buzz as Wollowitz intones about travels into imaginary lands and spaces as a manner of escape and a way of finding moments of "inner peace" from outside stresses and relationship struggles. "Catharsis" closes the album in a tightly worked and woozy fashion, Wollowitz is at his most wobbly, dramatic, and expressive with this performance as the foundation of tinkling keys and diving bass pound away. The passion is felt intensely yet the quiet surging of the music drives home the sense of losing control and truly letting yourself go recklessly on your way without a true path forward to resolution.
Wollowitz and Nardo present a world of sound that is a whirling and almost uncontrollable force of nature in it's explorative nature, one that is capable of stopping on a dime and delivering moments of harmonious beauty. The pair fluidly manage to tap into wells of anxieties and deep concerns while presenting a work that flows miraculously free with a heightened sense of drama and lustful desires. There are moments that recall some of the more ambitious moments and tension of the early Rough Trade catalogue as well as moments of dance-inflected pop that are ebulliently bouncy. It’s hard to capture the allure of Feats of Engineering with the written word, but its an album full of heightened drama, encouraging the audience to truly lose themselves while indulging in the experience.