Friday, April 26, 2013

Torres - Torres

Torres - Torres

Torres is the most absurdly assured debut I've heard so far this decade. A full band's worth of musicians played on the album, but much of it is just Torres' electric guitar and voice, backed as much by reverb, hard panning and other devices as by the musicians. However, the band isn't there for perfunctory arrangements, nor are the sonic details a mere bag of tricks; in fact, one of Torres' talents is knowing how much of each a song needs. "Come to Terms" is an outlier; it's the only song to feature an acoustic guitar, and it's arguably the most lyrically conventional. Hear it out of context and you might peg Torres as an entirely different songwriter, one of a sort that aren't in short supply. Hear it in sequence as the penultimate track, however, and you've already heard the arrangements and songwriting and recording nuances that make her float to the top. You know she recorded it with an acoustic guitar and little else because she already had something to say and decided it was the best tool to help her convey it, as opposed to too many young songwriters who have nothing to say, but think that everything will fall into place if they strap on an acoustic and folk shit up.

The whole album expertly negotiates the line between self expression and self indulgence thanks to Torres' sense of restraint and her lyrics, which are emotive, but never lapse into simplistic "Dear Diary" cliches. Torres puts herself out there without burying her vocals in the mix or obscuring her lyrics with obliqueness, which would be a risk if she didn't have the talent and assuredness of a songwriter several years into their career. The bigger risk would have been to put in anything less than total commitment and hope nobody would notice.


Related:
Torres - Moon & Back (live)

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