While history has proven that amity amongst band members is not necessary to create good music, it’s always special when the depths of a bands’ friendship is palpable in their work. Years of experience playing in bands like Sloppy Jane and Water From Your Eyes speaks to the technical talent of Al Nardo and Bailey Wollowitz, but it’s ultimately this sense of camaraderie that makes their prog-rock band, fantasy of a broken heart, so compelling. The duo’s collaborative friendship dates back to 2017, though up until now, fantasy of a broken heart was confined to a relatively low profile of house shows and occasional single releases. The time spent cultivating fantasy’s identity, or perhaps lack thereof, is discernible in their debut album, Feats of Engineering, a captivating experience doused in honest introspection and eccentric charm. 

While fantasy of a broken heart claims that “only isolated artists make original material”,  Feats of Engineering is a harmonious dialogue sung in a language that feels completely their own. Lyrically, Nardo and Wollowitz are masters at fusing vulnerable with whimsy. It would be easy to assume an album with imagery of Tony Danza preparing buttermilk pancakes and a possessed Evil Kenevil wielding an “as seen on TV magicians novelty arrow” would amount to a goofy but hollow listen, perhaps engaging in a bit of post-irony ridden social commentary at best. Instead, fantasy’s amusing tangents and bizzare imagery work to enhance the project’s emotional depth. In its entirety, Feats of Engineering is somewhat of an auditory hallucinogen, inviting us deep into an unrefined subconscious reality where the strangest of thoughts are met with rather hard to swallow existential notions. Instead of coming across as a joke you aren’t in on, the album’s vulnerability factor feels somehow amplified by each lyrical peculiarity.  

In an auditory sense, fantasy is a maximalist quilt of 70’s prog-rock, 90’s dream-pop, and modern indie-pop, though if you tried to create a list of every subgenre their sound touches it would rival a CVS receipt. Each song on the album has a distinct identity, with its own unique formula of layered instrumentals and varied time signatures. However, amidst their most enigmatic structures, Feats of Engineering successfully stands as a holistic body of work, unified by a discernible sonic ethos and enriched by the soothing harmonies of two voices with an undeniable musical rapport.  

The album commences with the trance-inducing “Fresh”, a minute long track that starts off with a steady high pitch car beep, the one reminding you to buckle up or perhaps shut your door. Though the beep is initially attention-seizing, it is soon lost in a mesmerizing synthetic organ melody, and in a brief, word-less 60 seconds, the magnetizing pull of Feats of Engineering has begun. The vibrant “AFV” follows, providing an auditory finger snap to the meditative state induced by the intro song. At its core, “AFV” is a humorous tale of a romantic interaction gone wrong, a palm to the face detailing of a flirting effort mistaken as an attempt to buy weed. The earnest anecdote is paired with an uneasy chorus, as the two harmonize on the repeating lines of “All I wanted was a little sensation”, and “I thought a devil called my name”. Through satisfying hooks and a lavish layering of instrumentals, fantasy of a broken heart harvests structures of an addicting pop track, while balancing a lighthearted story with a desperate longing to feel.  

It doesn’t take long to establish that fantasy of a broken heart has perfected the art of writing tearjerkers that pass as chic remixes of vintage television jingles. Loss is the archetype for this, offering a vulnerable testimony to the umbrella concept of “loss”, supplemented by buoyant guitar riffs and animated vocals. The track is burdened by the weighing question of “have you lost it”, but not without the comedic relief of “Where did you put the sword”. “Loss” is not the only song on Feats of Engineering where fantasy sugar coats dreary ideas in bubbly melodies adorned with quirky references. At a recent Brooklyn show, Wollowitz led with “this song is about Pizza”, before diving into “Doughland”, where the duo’s craving for inner peace becomes increasingly harrowing with every “I can’t stand this” they chant. In “Mega”, the toll of an ambiguous relationship dynamic takes the shape of a catchy tune about an extinct giant shark. The title track might hold the most intense juxtaposition of heavy and eccentric, with imagery of tiny men and their adorable miniature safety gear following shortly after a painful reflection of “thoughts of jumping off a broken bridge in Middletown”. 

The compelling effect of Nardo and Wollowitz’s harmonies excels in “Ur Heart Stops”, a sonically melodramatic track about the tethers of depression and stagnation. When Wollowitz’s droning is met with Nardo’s shimmery vocals over a series of jolty instrumentals, the repetitive chorus of “Ur Heart Stops” becomes hypnotic, transforming a devastating existential dialogue into a catchy prog-pop masterpiece. 

“Tapdance 1” and “Tapdance 2” are back to back tracks that take contrary approaches to exploring the crushings of doubt. In “Tapdance 1”, the lyrics rarely stray from “Nobody knows what you’re talking about”. In “Tapdance 2”, Wollowitz embarks on a tangent of reflective commentary and what ifs, confessing to a habit of overindulging in Pitchfork reviews and dwelling on a “surplus of vision”. In the midst of an excess of thoughts and questions, fantasy of a broken heart gets honest about the blurring between art and interpersonal, while once again toying with the idea that “nobody knows what you’re talking about”. 

The album wraps up with “Catharsis”, an appropriately titled delicate ballad that matures into an impassioned crescendo of realization. Around four and a half minutes in, Wollowitz’ soothing vocals erupt into an emotionally charged shout, and the lyrics shift from guarded thoughts of “it means so much to me that it happened at all”, to fervent revelations of “Love is collision, destroying your soul for another”. The two offer one final harmony, repeating “catharsis of the heart is the narcissist’s nightmare” over a pulse-raising arrangement of drums and fierce orchestration. While the album hurdles through a docket of unresolved questions and heavy notions, the intensity of “Catharsis” offers closure to a lyrically and sonically consuming experience, solidifying that Feats of Engineering is not only a collection of quality songs, but an extremely well structured album. 

Like many of their fellow Brooklyn-based genre-bending contemporaries, fantasy of a broken heart isn’t here to resuscitate a subculture from decades prior. At the same time, it is abundantly clear the duo has spent ample time listening and deconstructing the most successful structures and sounds, creating arrangements that are equal parts pragmatic and avant garde. Through every nonsensical twist and earnest turn, Feats of Engineering engages in sonic nostalgia while paving a completely original identity, verifying that fantasy of a broken heart is a major band to watch.

You can listen to Feats of Engineering out everywhere now.

Written by Manon Bushong