Peter Holslin wrote this in a top hat and tails
Has Tom Krell stepped out from the darkness? Have the tears dried, the grey clouds lifted? Four years ago, on his 2010 debut Love Remains, the How to Dress Well mastermind was like an R&B ghost haunting a vast cavern, his stunning falsetto caked in so much echo and reverb that it made your speakers crackle. But when he sings his verses on new song “Words I Don’t Remember,” he takes away all the effects, letting his words of love come out crystal clear.
Krell’s music has always been guided by a certain shiver and ache, and “Words I Don’t Remember” is classic How to Dress Well. Stretching out for six minutes, the track opens on a bed of minimalist synth chords and finger-snaps. A strong beat doesn’t come in until past the two-minute mark, but eventually, Krell’s talk of love and relationships, togetherness and privacy, finally boils over into a climax of heart-throbbing kicks and phantom cries.
The poppiest productions on How to Dress Well’s previous album, 2012’s Total Loss, were stripped raw—underscoring a sense of anguish and frustration that carried through the entire record. But on this track, Krell inches closer to the light. At one point, when his voice gets chopped and screwed into a funky, syncopated stutter, it doesn’t seem like a way to reflect on love lost, or something sad like that. To me, it just seems like an opportunity for Krell to tell someone “I love you, baby,” in his own special way.
