Assessment: Elsten Torres’ Vice Versa album
I simply streamed Elston Torres’ new bilingual album Vice Versa, and I LOVE IT. It’s so joyful!
I’ve typically referred to the Cuban-born, Miami-based Torres because the “King of Love Songs” due to his lovely songs “Nearer Tonight” and “A Excellent World” have been in my playlist since, effectively, earlier than I had playlists. This album retains the love vibe however turns it into joyful, anthemic music that can blow you away.
Vice Versa is Elsten Torres’ thirteenth studio album, and it’s an uplifting mixture of musical influences and earnest, socially aware messages. Launched this yr, the undertaking took form each earlier than and after the pandemic, with Elston mixing themes of resilience, artistic renewal, and residing with pleasure. It’s precisely what I want on the finish of a tough day or week, and I feel it’s precisely what America and the world have to counteract its ongoing political exhaustion.
The album options a mixture of ska, Motown, rock, rap, and Latin sounds, a lot of it crafted with longtime collaborators Emil Temeltas and Raul Ramirez and acclaimed producer JP Gasca, and options the Los ReggaeMonks. Torres’ lead single “Vive” encapsulates the spirit of Vice Versa – seize the current and embrace life’s alternatives with pleasure and objective.
Torres has pulled off the very troublesome feat of a feel-good but socially aware album; seven songs celebrating music’s potential to marry messages of unity and friendship with danceable grooves and heartfelt lyricism. There may be nothing like dancing and music to carry individuals collectively, and Torres realizes that regardless of our nationality, our nation, or our politics, all of us communicate music.
Vibrant with a contemporary edge, fusing classic rock and Motown-inspired horns with reggae rhythms and energetic choruses, the album is all earworms. It makes your physique transfer and your soul really feel good
This album – and Torres himself – are emotionally genuine. Songs like “Vive” deal with residing absolutely and never letting “the alternatives of life, love, well being, and happiness slip away.” The title, Vice Versa, serves as a name to motion and self-trust. Every thing in regards to the album says “Sure!”.
Vice Versa stands as a testomony to Elsten Torres’ steady progress as an artist, which has been appreciable given his two Grammy and a Latin Grammy nominations, two BMI songwriting awards, and 6 Billboard Prime Ten songs. The album’s celebration of pleasure, hope, and multicultural unity resonates strongly with me, and I believe with audiences in lots of nations. With its mixture of musical innovation and messages of connection and optimism, it strikes me spiritually in methods his earlier romantic songs didn’t (however they’re nonetheless as fantastic as they have been the primary day I heard them, and the ultimate track on the album, “I’ll Defend You,” has his romantic voice in it).
I’ve been following Torres since 2015, and I feel Vice Versa is a profession milestone that brings collectively a long time of Torres’ expertise throughout Latin rock, rockabilly, and Cuban son genres — it’s one in every of Torres’ most heartfelt and impressive works thus far. The tracks have catchy, rootsy preparations, highly effective lyrics, and and blend genres in ways in which transcend language. However most of all, they’re joyful! And you can be too if you play it.
Stream on Spotify and main platforms.
Patrick O’Heffernan
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