Album Review: How To Dress Well - Total Loss

In Total Loss, Tom Krell (aka How To Dress Well) is trying to communicate a lot of things to a lot of people. These songs are apologies, confessions, thank yous and cries for help. There's a sense here of abandonment, of letting go after a long struggle to hold on. Set It Right mixes huge layers of vocals, synth and piano with a delicate rollcall of people in Krell's life he's let slip, one way or another:“Jamie I miss ya, Mama I miss ya, and dad I miss ya, Andrew I miss ya, and Faith I miss ya…”, and this album is for them.

In the spoken word intro of Say My Name Or Say Whatever, a kid talks about how it feels to fly, “nothing around you but clear blue sky, no one to hassle you, no one to tell you where to go or what to do… The only bad thing about flying is having to come back down to the fuckin' world,” before a bright and clear piano backing comes in. Krell sings about self-respect and getting away from the past, while the song becomes a dreamy, wishful representation of what the world might be like if he never had to come back down to reality. Confession is a common theme in RnB music, but it's rare to see anything approaching the honesty and pain of this record in the mainstream charts. These songs aren't interested in keeping to genre conventions anyway, using drum machines, synths, strings and fuzzed-out guitars indiscriminately to create a record that is direct and whole.

In How Many, Krell sings about his struggle with depression: “I was living on a sacrifice/Never never can I have myself a vision” - and this album is a statement, to himself as much as anyone, that that time is over. His vision is clear and beautiful.