How To Dress Well - "New Confusion"

Love hearing new work from How To Dress Well. Pioneering one of the more adventurous takes on vocal-based experimental music, Tom Krell is back with his first new work since 2018. Of the track “New Confusion” the press release states, “On lead single “New Confusion,” the most plaintive track on the album, Krell’s voice appears almost lullaby-like—it’s a deceptively pretty vocalization that documents a moment of optimistic rebirth tinged by the fear of isolation. In that sense, it is a document of life itself: the pitfalls of opening ourselves to love, the harrowing path toward self-actualization, all wrapped up in a line that feels like a thesis statement for the album itself: “Hell is where no one has anything in common with anyone else.” It’s clear that Krell, reborn and searching, is seeking deep connection with his family, with his friends, with himself and his own life.  

This tactile approach to lyrics and music as vehicles for memory and truth forms the backbone of I Am Toward You. On “Crypt Sustain,” a stadium-sized guitar riff is augmented by blast beats, everything cohering into a blown out triumphant whole. It’s a euphoric moment tinged with underlying melancholy of the track’s subject matter. Krell writes about his neurodivergent brother’s visual art, singing, “Tell me everything you saw in a dream/but the dream pulls back/tell me everything you mean/but the screen goes black.” This idea of miscommunication–of trying to convey something so deep and internal that there aren’t words for it—is a running theme of not just the album, but the entirety of the How to Dress Well project. “