How To Dress Well @ Stereo, 23 Nov
Despite the iced streets outside, How To Dress Well – aka Tom Krell – and his touring band thawed a frozen Wednesday evening, imbuing Stereo’s industrial confines with warmth and pound-shop fairy-lights. After a dreamy, ambient set from Ricky Eat Acid demanded full focus from a surprisingly sparse audience, the devotees gathered to the foot of Krell’s mic stand are plenty ready to dance. How To Dress Well is booking far larger venues stateside, and although his Glasgow fans would probably love to see him storm the UK charts – he’s got the pop credentials to do so, too – the evening feels like a secret, private club.
Proving quality over quantity, the faces at the front are certifiably word-perfect. New single What’s Up bounces to a radiant reception, and Krell charms the room with goofy anecdotes about band nudes, taut (mic stand) knobs, choking on spit, cute dogs and boxer brands: “I tighten my knobs in my Calvins…" offers a grinning bandmate.
The set lasts nearly two hours, and spans just twelve tracks. Rather than rushing through favourites from his previous albums, Krell offers back stories and explanations for his new songs from fourth album Care, setting them in (sometimes silly, sometimes ultra serious) context before bringing them to life, aided by his new, multi-talented three piece band. The record’s frantic embrace of myriad pop genres demands live drums, keys, synth, bass and violin in support of Krell’s trademark double mic set-up; one drenched in effects.
“This is the serious bit of the show,” Krell warns, and sets about describing the dreams behind tragic odyssey The Ruins. Next, he introduces Suicide Dream 1, an older song written for a friend who later passed away. It’s been performed at every HTDW gig since, but last minute technical hitches cause the band to improvise as Krell’s isolated, heartfelt vocals holds the song together. After, he’s momentarily lost for words; “That was sick. That was so fucking special.”
Krell’s songs have always been defiantly personal, and he’s no stranger to singing of love, loss and regret – and maintaining all the eye contact whilst doing so – but it’s the bonafide sex anthems on Care that set off the room. Can’t You Tell, produced by Dre Skull, demands truly filthy moves from the front row, and the band are delighted. After a pretend encore involving on-stage subterfuge, Salt Song sends the room home beaming. Care discusses the difficult, important job of looking after yourself and those you love, and tonight showed that there’s rarely a better remedy than a truly special show.