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Jun 24, 2014An immersive album that feels designed to be taken as a whole, What Is This Heart? reveals How to Dress Well coming into its own.
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Aug 21, 2014It's a smörgåsbord of carefully culled influence, one that Krell indulges in with gusto.
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Jun 24, 2014What Is This Heart? often feels uncomfortably intimate, which cuts both ways..
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Jun 23, 2014Krell’s fragile innocence and tenderness remains as touching as ever, though, with a string of grand, sweeping numbers occupying the album’s heart that underline his power to galvanise the deepest depths of the soul.
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Jun 25, 2014Krell steps out of the shadows on his third album, but of course he hasn’t let go of the sadness that’s colored the project to date.
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Jun 19, 2014The music itself is bolder, yes, but still operating on the same cloudy register, stamping above experimentation into the domain of an artist who is more determined than ever.
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Jun 19, 2014There’s no staggering departure from Total Loss, but the backdrop for his soulful R&B crooning is becoming worn-out, and you can feel Krell auditioning replacements.
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Jun 20, 2014It moves Krell closer to the mainstream without sacrificing the emotional complexity of his music, proving that Krell is a musical force not to be underestimated.
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Jun 24, 2014Krell’s most complete album to date: not because it exactly answers the question of where his position is in relation to pop--nor the question of the title, nor any questions at all--but because it perfectly captures that oscillation that has always been at the centre of his work.
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Jun 24, 2014The result is one of optimistic discontent. Krell’s heart may be perpetually drug through the dirt, but nothing is going to stop him from looking up.
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MagnetJul 18, 2014What Is This Heart? certainly isn't done any favors by Krell's stock, dejection-by-the-numbers lyricism and the baring of his overextended falsetto against the array of muted synths, strings and drum machines that crop up from song to song, as the album cycles through every tired adult-contemporary R&B trope in the book. [No. 111, p.55]
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MojoJul 24, 2014Krell sounds like ha has taken a step back, seemingly trading his experimentalism for a more traditional blue-eyed soul route. [Jul 2014, p.91]
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Jul 7, 2014All that said, there’s a lot to love still, and if you carefully trim around the dross, you’re left with a stunning product and some phantasmagorical slivers of sonic mastery.
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Jun 23, 2014His attempts to revolutionise, strip bare and stretch the borders of R&B with all manner of glitches, gollums and glaciers are admirable, but it’s only when he tranquilizes his inner Usher for the downbeat piano throb of ‘See You Fall’, the spectral orchestration of ‘Pour Cyril’ and the acoustic minimalism of ‘2 Years On (Shame Dream)’ that he achieves the subtlety and invention of, say, Sufjan Stevens.
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Jun 26, 2014Despite the mainstream references, the album is a much more emotionally wrenching experience than anything on the actual pop charts.
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Jun 24, 2014With What Is This Heart? Tom Krell has managed to indulge his experimental tendencies while at the same time achieve his most accessible sound to date.
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Jun 23, 2014The title of this album is a challenge as well, as How to Dress Well’s modern masterpiece is conducted with the most eternal transparency--Krell asks “what is this heart” and lets you look right into his own.
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Jun 25, 2014It’s nice to have a relaxing album to fall asleep to, but What Is This Heart? is an album that will straight up put you to sleep.
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Jun 23, 2014Though it never quite comes through crystal-clear, the intensity and sincerity of the underlying emotion manages to bleed through a confusing swirl of altered sounds.
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Q MagazineJul 2, 2014It's an album constructed from the simplest of elements: muted keyboards chords, pained falsetto vocals and Krell's greatest weapon of all: near silence. [Aug 2014, p.108]
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Jun 25, 2014Krell's still part of a pop vanguard, but his music is more than ever a welcoming gesture.
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Jun 24, 2014Krell's third LP continues to elevate his R&B-inflected music into sonic clarity, though his emotions remain muddled as ever.
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Jun 19, 2014A collision between complex, elegant songwriting and soppy bedroom angst, it's not the most coherent collection of songs, but that disorder works, ending up as a function of Krell's ultimately fascinating sense of experimentation.
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Jun 25, 2014As intellectual and introverted as Krell often is, he’s at his best when he and the music simply let go. What Is This Heart? delivers in the second half when nearly every song peaks with exuberant finales.
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Jun 30, 2014At its heart it is an album at odds with itself as much as it is with its audience, too weird to gain mainstream popularity, but too pop to be truly revered by existing fans.
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Jun 24, 2014On the disjointed What Is This Heart? the disconnect between Krell’s pop leanings and his innate miserableness has never been greater.
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Jun 19, 2014Though his voice can sound a little insipid, songs such as A Power, Face Again and What You Wanted possess satisfying bass rumbles and earworm hooks.
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Jun 19, 2014Krell’s voice could never get tiresome, but the album seems unclear as to what it wants to be--too restless for heartbreak, too downbeat for the dancefloor, like a candle that’s trying to illuminate a club.
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Jul 7, 2014The songs allow drama instead of losing themselves in repetition and reverie. The music is closer to pop, but it’s still within Mr. Krell’s interior world.
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Jun 23, 2014While there are a few great moments here (Words I Don't Remember, Pour Cyril), some judicious pruning of the 55-minute running time wouldn't have gone amiss.
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Jul 2, 2014It feels lush, it pleases and occasionally stirs, but there’s a cold distance between voice and instrument throughout, a distinction that barely existed on previous releases.
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Jun 19, 2014Krell's tactile electronic textures remain, of course--as beguiling and poignant as ever--but a wider instrumental palette has been brought into the fold, resulting in his most ambitious and addictive album to date.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 41
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Mixed: 3 out of 41
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Negative: 2 out of 41
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Jul 18, 2014
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Jun 24, 2014
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Jul 7, 2014