Review Summary: No Air
Articulating the feeling of a dream to a friend is nigh on impossible. You could have sworn you were falling, feeling the churning of your stomach as you tripped off the edge and fell into the endless nothingness, feeling your lungs expand as you take that shocked breath and your heartbeat begins to race as you fall. And fall. And fall. In a certain sense, they can understand. Yet that moment is so personal and unique to you and contained within yourself that there is no real way for them to know it without placing them in the same situation.
This is why How To Dress Well’s
Love Remains is transcendent in a sense. It bypasses the long explanation and puts you into the flop before the flip into the fall. It’s hazy in a sense, like a dream it’s less about the characters as it is how they interact with their environments. Because who was in it is never as important as what they were doing, how they were acting and how their actions changed yours, sort of like a David Lynch film. The events may seem weird and uncomfortable, but you know that it’s real somehow once you cut through the empty space between you and it. By some bypass of paradox it manages to feel entirely hollow yet bear weight at the same time, and believe me it’s a large burden that
Love Remains is carrying.
Titling the album
Love Remains does make it more real, I believe. The audience floats through led by Krell’s murmured lyrics drifting on a cloud of his shimmering wishy washy sort of R&B styled with ambient amongst blues and soul leanings. But what really makes this visceral is the juxtaposition with titles such as Suicide Dream, You Won’t Need Me Where I’m Goin’, and Can’t See My Own Face. It’s as if Krell’s whispery washed out voice signifies that he is indeed not there, and has no intention of being wherever “there” is. In fact, he left long ago, and the only thing he left behind was Love.
