How To Dress Well
What Is This Heart?
June 23 2014 (Weird World)
8/10
Words: Alison Mack
Tom Krell, the Berlin-based American and exponent of ‘hipster R&B’, shifts the gears up for this third eclectic and diverse album. Single release ‘Repeat Pleasure' and the hand-clapping 'Very Best Friend' are about as near as he gets to pop, which stands in opposition to opener ‘2 Years On (Shame Dream)’, which is little more than Krell's a cappella falsetto accompanied by a minimal arrangement. The track lends even deeper poignancy when one learns that it is about his two older twin brothers, both with Asperger Syndrome, and about dealing with watching them struggle with disability.
On 'See You Fall' Krell lends to the close of each line, echoes of his own voice, with piano strains longing to break free; elsewhere 'Words I Don’t
Remember', similarly employs submerged synth chords with vocals to build along a shaft of layering of processed guitars and electronic drums.
The pace changes on the semi-dance track 'Very Best Friend' with rasping synths that sometimes sound incongruous over lyrics like “You’re my baby/want you to have it all/ Want you to have my baby/please don’t be appalled.”
A dreamy confessional soul-bearer of often candid words make for an album that across its breadth of 14 tracks, straddles the past of shimmery pop grooves, and a future that heralds the fusing of the classical and intellectual (Krell is well versed in philosophy, particularly the work of Immanuel Kant). 'WITH?' is his most rounded work to date, possibly his best, and certainly one that will be seeking its place in end of year stand-out album polls.
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