Tori – To The Moon

By: Alec Cunningham

For a debut album, To The Moon speaks volumes about the potential future of Tori’s music career. Within just a few second of listening you’ll be hooked. Hailing all the way from Long Island, New York, her accent shines through with every ambiguous word that is uttered. Tori grabs you with her melodic, yet tranquil melodies, and reels you in with her raspy, seductive voice.

The album opens with Tori’s rough, yet welcoming voice softly singing, “You can bet that I’ll never forget the magic of the morning,” on “Alaska Again,” which then transitions perfectly into “Lucky Boat.” While the album revolves around the subject of love and relationships, the subject matter never becomes overused or repetitive; she finds fresh ways to present the struggles along with the cheerfulness of relationships. Even the breakup songs have a flare of optimism about them. In “Mordy,” she sings, “I wrote you a letter with a recent picture of me. Will you hang me on your wall? If you put me back I promise I won’t fall.”

As the most energetic and upbeat song of the album, “Little One” slips into the memory for quite a while. You’ll catch yourself in a toe-tapping, finger-snapping frenzy at every little mention or remembrance of the song. Other songs, however, have more of a sway-to-the-rhythm, mellow feel about them. “Rockets” reminds those in a relationship to make the most of the moment at hand before it’s too late. She sings, “So hold tight and wrap your arms around me, because we’re about to take off. No, we’ll never get this time back.”

One of the most compelling attributes of the album is that the intimacy conveyed within the lyrics and melodies makes it seem as if she is playing the songs personally to you. The simplicity of the instrumental backing on each song accentuates Tori’s agonizingly beautiful vocal talents. But not only does Tori have a knack for singing, she also has an obvious talent for words; this girl even makes talking about Calamine sound romantic. “When you’re so itchy I can be your Calamine.”

With a sound along the lines of The Be Good Tanyas meets Chris Pureka, this is an album almost too good to be true for the already notable genre. To The Moon is as good as a debut album could possibly be. This isn’t just another female songwriter playing wistful acoustic love songs. This is a talented musician who is sure to make it big within the next few years. Tori is one artist to keep a close eye on.