Heart Pharmacy Natural Selection
Ali Sarijlou is Heart Pharmacy. Why perform under a pseudonym? Who cares. After listening to Sarijlou’s debut Natural Selection, we’re more concerned with the question, “Who broke his heart?” This album is a tone poem to love lost and love gained. The instrumentation is impressive given that it is all, excluding one song, entirely Sarijlou’s beast—right down to the ethereal orchestration on “Introducing.” The lyrics are also solid, if at times a bit saccharine, and ultimately pleasing. Sarijlou’s liner notes and form pay appropriate homage to Elliott Smith—though the underlying theme of Selection is hope in hopeless situations and hopeless times, something Smith ultimately never conveyed. It’s nice to see someone in Salt Lake City devoted to his craft and capable enough to produce a full-length without a band, which requires extreme dedication, vision and a huge investment of time and money. Sarijlou isn’t going anywhere but up.