The newest album from Torres, Silver Tongue, is the sort of ting that's easy to enjoy if you're in the right frame of mind. Lots of what's here on this release, out on Friday via Merge Records, is stark and mildly unforgiving, but at times this material approaches the accessibility levels of, say, numbers from Florence and the Machine.
"Silver Tongue" sways and rattles with flashes of quiet drama, while "Records of Your Tenderness" is better still, and certainly more energetic. Elsewhere, "Dressing America" purrs and coos astride a nice hook, even as "A Few Blue Flowers" is bleakly beautiful. For some reason, Silver Tongue didn't grab me as much as the last Torres album.
At her best here, Torres manages to enliven this material with enough personality that the overall effect of the stuff works. I mean, I'm likely not the target audience for this, but it's hard to imagine lots of this being invigorating to anyone in a younger age bracket very much. In small doses, as the cuts pulse through a playlist, for example, the tunes will seem a good deal more interesting than they seem in total.
Silver Tongue is out on Merge Records on Friday.
More details on Torres via the official Facebook page, or the official website.
[Photo: Michael Lavine]