Indie-rocker TORRES clearly Thirstier on her new album

BY KARYN A. POKLETAR

The ten tracks on Brooklyn-based Mackenzie Scott’s Thirstier embrace the rethinking of a brooding artist’s life. Scott’s place in the world, singing style and mood have changed and healed because of what she’s found since the seriousness of her 2017 album Three Futures, which recounted the religious trauma of a Southern Baptist upbringing. Certainly TORRES, the moniker of Mackenzie Scott, has found her greener stretch. Now, this artist has true love, stability and is showing off her big-stage-voice.

The singer-songwriter is lustily, romantically and spiritually in love with artist/fiancé Jenna Gribbon, who painted the phallic, rebellious album cover of Scott lounging with a guitar between her legs. There’s a clear adjustment in tone on Scott’s fifth record and she’s over being kicked to the curb in 2015, by then-label 4AD, for not being commercially successful enough. Scott’s music has varied from intimate, experimental rock-pop and expanded into all the flavors of her creativity. I’m not going to spew arguments for her voice, none needed. She is a super strong alto, who can hit the high notes with her head voice. (Scott has a degree in songwriting from Belmont University where she also began recording her music.) In her latest release Thirstier, we have a broader view of Scott’s talents with it’s gentler ballads along with thrasher grunge-pop.

The opener “Are You Sleepwalking?” is heavy-metal-esque, interfaced with super-shred, low register riffs and squealing reverb. Clunking along percussively, lyrics promise the Sleepwalker she is not alone, but has a loyal friend. Scott’s ready to brave the darkness of the unconscious to find out the etiology of this somnambulistic behavior (“I know its hard keeping track//If you’re seeing things I’m seeing them too//I’m gonna chase the answers with you.”) This is a love song at heart even though Doc Martin’s are needed in order to wade through the chaos.

The closing track “Keep The Devil Out” flanks the album with a desire to be totally done with confusion and chaos and replace it with what might be waiting on the other side of hope. This song turns into a blistering anthem, bursting with emancipated vocals as Scott sings “Stir crazy and bored//Expiring behind doors.” She waxes relatable, referencing the pandemic restrictions and subsequent mental health damages before declaring, “I have got all the hope I need // To keep the devil out of here.” Hang out with this artist as she weaves melody around the beat; Scott promises you’ll be safe with her. One of the most fun songs on the album is “Hug From A Dinosaur,” a zany garage- rock, synth blend that’s playful and fun.

Can you hear hints of Torres new direction on the Silver Tongue album too? “Good Scare” suggests wicked and mysterious powers are at work and “Dressing America,” undismayed by any possible setbacks. In contrast, Thirstier reveals to us what a shiny, happy, person this chanteuse is becoming! Scott gives us a buffet of musical style; and the bounty her vocal acrobatics provided on Thirstier have not been heard in previous albums with this amplitude of vulnerability.

In one song she’s ejecting lyrics appropriate to a fairytale. Listen to “Constant Tomorrowland” for this line: “Centuries writhing in // Dullness of darkness // After all of this // comes a mighty harvest”), and the next moment skipping atop flower covered mountains of “Drive Me.” It’s sugary song is one of the prettiest on the album, as Scott relays a lover as “Better than a muse // burns slower than a fuse.” The tragic song “Big Leap” (“It’ll haunt me forever the way you came down”) is a love song to her dad, recounting the intense memory of him being paralyzed after falling 30 feet.

Next, Torres rides her magic carpet in “Hand in the Air.” You might be tempted to whip out your air guitar the way the chorus kicks in with such a ‘90’s feeling on the title track where the artist sings “The more of you I drink, the thirstier I get, baby.” The following song, “Kiss the Corners,” is a hypnotic flight with seeking vocals “Everything goes away// You remain.” Percussion is looped throughout the whole song, it gets monotonous but the production is great and brimming with menacing rhythm-forward energy.

This is a robust, sexy, pop album for TORRES, coming into alignment with her higher self to share with high intensity, her newfound meaning in, and celebrating life with joy, introspection and ferocity.