What?: Tori's tenth album.
Why?: It would take a lot to stop me buying Tori Amos. She's constantly surprising.
Tell me more!:
I think I truly became a Tori Amos fan after To Venus And Back. Part of that was the amazing live album that showcased her catalogue perfectly, but it was also the acknowledgement that she wasn't afraid to completely change her production style album to album.
AATS is a mix of many of the previous Tori production styles. Much of the up-front guitar arrangements remind me of her very early work, some songs are piano/vocals solo, some are the trip-hop of "To Venus".
I'm a big fan of the trip-hop feel of "Give" and "Flavour", the Cure bass-line of "Welcome To England" and the Zeppelin intro to "Strong Black Vine". The "Not Dying Today" beat is almost Sugarcubes. "Curtain Call" has a fantastic background echo guitar thing that I could list to all day, and a great chorus. The little descending keyboard bit before the chorus of "Fire In Your Plain" always makes me smile. "Mary Jane" and "Ophelia" are classic solo-Tori, where we can imagine her playing in the corner of a bar, the clicking of glasses almost drowning her out.
"Lady In Blue" and "Oscar's Theme" are both perfect album enders, bluesy, filthy, jazz-bar stuff. I love how, four minutes in, "Lady In Blue" kicks into a fantastic distorted guitar filled ending which I'd argue would have been a better ending than "Oscar's Theme" which seems a bit tacked on, as good as it is. Although Wikipedia has just told me that "Oscar's Theme" is indeed tacked on as a bonus for Australians, so there you go.
It's a very solid album. I love the varied and interesting production, the heavy use of non-piano backing.
I don't love everything though. I can't stand "Police Me" although I love the attempt. I'm not a fan of some of the choruses, especially "Strong Black Vine". Tori is known for her strange pronunciation of words, but I feel she really ramps it up on this album, almost to the point where I'm sure she's taking the piss. Only Tori could make the York of New York fifteen syllables.
A number of Tori fans don't like this album. Sure it's long and you could probably cut a number of songs out, but which ones? You can bet if Tori was forced to cut the 18 songs down to 12 she'd have taken out a couple of your favourite songs in the process.
7/10
