Fake Plastic Tunes: How to Dress Well- Just Once EP REVIEW

Thursday, July 28, 2011

How to Dress Well- Just Once EP REVIEW

It seemed like Tom Krell went to great efforts to keep the listener at arm's length on Love Remains, How to Dress Well’s 2010 debut. As unreliable as it was technically proficient, Remains was its own worst enemy. The lo-fi distorted haze wore down the music until all that remained was the atmosphere itself. And while large chunks of it were intriguing, this uneven pacing rendered the debut ultimately frustrating. With his follow-up EP, Just Once, Krell provides the listener with a newfound consistency without sacrificing any of How to Dress Well's dreamlike mystique

Just Once sounds both so accessible and smooth, you could almost make the argument here that Krell is overcorrecting. The listener is fully embraced by the album’s cascade of disarming orchestral arrangements. The music itself is spread out over four rich and texturous tracks (“Suicide Dream 1-3” and “Decisions”). Just Once also boasts a quite cavernous and accommodating production that provides these full-bodied songs enough room to breathe. Often prominently featured among these euphoric string swells is Krell’s distorted falsetto. His purposefully strained vocals were one of Remains’ weakest links, but their bemused detachment here complements the music exceptionally well lending it the necessary uniformity. Free from the musical pretension of their debut, How to Dress Well’s Just Once is as imminently listenable as Remains was polarizing- and more importantly, it creates anticipation for their next big release.