The Fat Angel Sings

The album cover of “What Is This Heart?” is a close-up of How to Dress Well brainchild Tom Krell‘s face. The image is appropriate — the album is an intimate collection of gorgeously layered pop songs about love and heartache making for a listen that is as affecting as it is enjoyable.

Sometimes a hushed near-whisper and sometimes anything but, with “What Is This Heart?” Tom Krell makes the move from indie R&B to pop. A little glitchiness and experimentation make their way into the album, but overall, it retains a spacious, emotional quietness. The higher production value is evident in the crispness of the instrumentation lending a cinematic quality to the larger pop tunes. His confessional and candid vocals take front and center on each track, usually in a sweeping, floating falsetto that lends to the feeling of Krell baring his naked soul to the listener.

American singer songwriter Tom Krell and his music project “How To Dress Well”
In April 2014, Krell released the first single, “Repeat Pleasure”off the forthcoming album, “What Is This Heart?”, which was released in June 2014.
His debut album, Love Remains, assembled the best of his early EPs. Just Once EP was a four-song suite of “Suicide Dream” songs with a string quartet — Krell then returned in 2012 with Total Loss. Krell has also collaborated with Active Child, Forest Swords, Shlohmo, and Jacques Greene and covered R. Kelly, Elite Gymnastics, Xiu Xiu, and Janet Jackson.