TORRES the Pleasure-Seeker Emerges on New LP Thirstier
The Brooklyn-based rock experimentalist tries a new sound on for size on 5th LP: unfettered enthusiasm

Amid the seriousness of her 2017 album Three Futures—it was primarily about reckoning with religious trauma, after all—TORRES’ Mackenzie Scott predicts, in the glow of disjointed synth-pop, “There must be a greener stretch ahead.” And after what feels like a lifetime, it sounds like the Georgia-born, Brooklyn-based artist is finally basking on those green lawns she sketched out nearly four messy years ago.
The music of TORRES has never been desolate, but there’s a clear change in tone on Scott’s fifth record under the moniker. Scott’s music has shifted from experimental rock to progressive pop and back again, and her career has been exciting to witness, but there was always the sense she was capable of something more energized, more her. In her latest release, Thirstier, we finally have the complete picture, and it’s as lively a rock album as you’ll hear this year.
Scott followed her clear-eyed 2015 breakthrough Sprinter, a standout record from that year, with the beautifully weird Three Futures. It was well-received by critics and remains one of the singular releases in TORRES’ vault, but it wasn’t long before she was booted by her then-label 4AD “for not being commercially successful enough.” Merge Records threw Scott a life preserver in 2019 when the Durham, North Carolina-based indie rock authority signed TORRES. Her first full-length release on the label was last year’s bold Silver Tongue, arriving in the waning months of pre-pandemic life. Eighteen months later, we all know more than we did in January 2020, and Scott is no exception.
We heard glimmers of TORRES’ new direction on Silver Tongue highlights like the eerie “Good Scare” and adventurous “Dressing America,” but Thirstier shows us a new TORRES altogether. Rather than choosing just one front to explore, Scott leaps from one musical style to the next effortlessly while diving headfirst into a sampling of new lyrical ideas—even if that means wading through choppy waters at times.