Post by Hellfire on May 21, 2007 23:18:24 GMT -5
i'm surprised at how positive most of these reviews are. they seem to really enjoy the album.
from Rolling Stone (3 out of 5 stars):
"Of the twenty-three tracks on her ninth studio album, Tori Amos only takes credit for singing five of them. The others, liner notes indicate, are vocalized by alternate Amoses named Clyde, Isabel, Santa and Pip -- four mythical beauties, each with her own blog! -- intended to represent different parts of the female psyche. With the exception of "Big Wheel," where Amos loses points for proclaiming herself a MILF, she saves American Doll Posse's best material for her own damn self: the arena-rock ballad "Digital Ghost," the chilly "Father's Son," which keeps all but Amos' fairy-tale croon and agile piano-playing buried low in the mix, and "Code Red," whose gothic stomp is classic Tori. Glam rave-ups like "You Can Bring Your Dog," snowflake-perfect piano ballads elaborated with strings ("Girl Disappearing") and even missteps like the Ashlee Simpson-meets-Mr. Bungle rocker "Teenage Hustling" live harmoniously amid the more typically Tori tunes. In typical Tori fashion, there's way too much conceptual malarkey surrounding the songs, but if you can ignore her fake posse, you'll find this is Amos' best album in many years. "
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from PopMatters.com (8 out of 10)
"For the occasion of the release of her ninth studio album (her third with new label Epic), singer-songwriter-turned-towering-concept princess Tori Amos has birthed five personas—the titular “dolls” of American Doll Posse: “Pip”, “Santa”, “Isabel”, “Clyde”, and “Tori”. Each girl has her own specific wardrobe (Unconditional and La Petite Salope will be among the ladies’ couturiers), hair and make-up and her own catalogue of songs on the record. The character of “Tori” even dons a red wig.
The ladies have a lot on their minds, but mainly, American Doll Posse is a record that wants to know why we are at war, and what we are going to do to clean up our mess. Amos has always questioned the patriarchal authority, but this time she actually begins a record with a song called “Yo, George”; a finger-pointing 90-second interlude obviously directed at our commander-in-chief that asks if we are living in the age of “the madness of King George”. From there, she really lets it rip.
Humanistic politics are engrained in many of the songs: “Almost Rosey” is a clear war-time anthem, with vaguely activist lyrics like “When I hear of one more bomb / We have all been robbed of song / And nightingales who throw their arms up / When is enough enough?”, but there is also a lot of “classic Tori” present: gorgeous string quartet arrangements courtesy of John Phillip Shenale (on the Leonard Cohen-esque “Girl Disappearing"), a touch of humor (on the raucous stomper of a single “Big Wheel”, where Tori actually refers to herself as a “MILF"), and a smattering of keyboard instruments (Bosendorfer, electric piano, Clavichord, Wurlitzer, Meletron) all played by Amos, often simultaneously. While the tempo is more brisk than previous Amos slow-burners, the big surprise here comes from the shocking use of guitar—both electric and acoustic.
“Body and Soul”, a schizophrenic, frenetic “duet” between Pip and Santa, is a muscular track that stands among Amos’s career-best attempts at a full-out proper rock and roll song. The “girl and her piano” myths about Amos should be put to rest once and for all: the woman is fully capable of letting her keys fall by the wayside and allowing a monster guitar riff to take center stage. Then there is the full-tilt, sex-drenched swagger of “Teenage Hustling”, a track that begins innocently enough on the piano and then builds to a sonic assault on all the corporate lackeys who have ever doubted Amos; she has, after all, been “in the business” since she was 14. Any music executive who wants to get between Amos and her music in the future might want first give this song a listen for a taste of what a pissed-off “girl with a piano” is gifted enough to pull off. These particular tracks re-invigorate Amos’s catalogue with their inventive, sometimes shocking use of guitars and effects.
Credited to “Mac Aladdin” (it is rumored that this is a pseudonym for Amos’s husband and sound engineer Mark Hawley), the guitar work on Posse sometimes verges dangerously into 1980s hair metal territory (sort of like Tori’s debut band, Y Kant Tori Read, as a matter of fact). There are little blues riffs that are harmless cheese, as if Tori was trying to capture an “edgy” sound, but couldn’t quite get there (most notably on the track “You Can Bring Your Dog”, which is still superior to most pop guitar jams currently being produced). Most of the time, though, the guitar work (which dominates Tori’s piano at times) is a nice nod to the great rock and roll bands of the 1970s: The Stooges, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, the Beatles, and Queen ("Digital Ghost” boasts a gloriously guitar-zapped bridge that is as close to arena rock as Tori has ever gotten). There is an air of opera-rock all throughout.
If it sounds like Tori has become the ultimate drag queen version of herself, that is because it is partly true: musically, this record’s closest kin would have to be the soundtrack for John Cameron Mitchell’s expert musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. There is a cabaret element on Tori’s record, as well as a cheeky sense of humor (if you don’t believe me, there is a thirty second interlude called “Fat Slut"), that permeates and lifts spirits. Short, playful tunes like “Velvet Revolution” even ape Eastern European flair with gypsy-jazz-esque mandolins jangling in the distance, while “Secret Spell” sounds like a life lesson from a woman who has seen it all.
The video for “Big Wheel”, which introduces the Posse characters, plays out in hysterically wry fashion: each woman vamps and shakes while winking at the camera. It is a very natural progression for the singer, who is always keen on discussing her love of musicals (from The Sound of Music to Mary Poppins). While at first glance it is shockingly theatrical for someone who is mainly known for being a confessional prodigy, it is also a nice change.
For her world tour this summer, Amos plans on embarking on a dramatic production of gargantuan proportions. Each night she will appear as one of the posse on stage for the beginning of the show, and midway through, “Tori” will take over. For those who know how Amos’s raw, invigorating live show unfolds, this is a considerable shock. She is doing a multi-media extravaganza. It’s a stroke of genius that she will play as different characters—Tori has fans that follow her tours the world over, and this will ensure they get a unique experience each time. She is really giving her fans what they want, more than almost any other artist working.
It’s a bold maneuver on Tori’s part to ask her oft-discussed fan base to take this leap of faith with her, but it will be rewarding for those with a little bit of vision—not to mention it will ensure that shrewd marketer Amos will move a lot units and fill seats at her upcoming shows. She hasn’t had this good of a gimmick in years.
Tori has a habit of getting lost in this sort of conceptual record, but she capably delivers every style of music her fans have come to expect from her on Posse. It is a little bit of everything she does well: rock, ballads, etc. Also, since her departure from Atlantic to Epic, she has displayed a keen sense for crafting some of the most pleasant pop of her career. “Big Wheel” may be a bit honky-tonky for the casual Amos fanatic, but at its heart, it is just a fun romp. As Amos sneers “Baby, I don’t need your cash / Mama’s got it all in hand”, you can practically mop the sarcasm up off the floor. Amos gets the reputation of being supremely self-serious and reverent; people forget she is a funny woman with a razor-sharp sense of humor.
After her last major releases (full length studio albums Scarlet’s Walk and The Beekeeper; and the archival Tales of a Librarian and A Piano), Amos faced criticism from fans and music critics for being a little too prolific. Scarlet and Beekeeper were both 18-plus tracks, buried in towering high-concepts (which revolved around things like “The Corn Mother” and her infinite mystique). Each record boasted an Amos who was changed by motherhood into a softer, more crowd-pleasing artist (who wrote syrupy ditties like the garbage of “Ribbons Undone” from Beekeeper, which disturbingly featured a lyric about her “little pony growing up fast"). Her once edgy sound was replaced with something tamer, and many fans were worried that their beloved goddess of angst was gone forever.
In Posse‘s closer, “Dragon”, Amos is at her absolute finest: vocals up front and center, fairytale piano straight out of a Brothers Grimm piece, and a creepy-crawly sensibility that mixes with a pristine, almost cutesy tone. It’s the kind of delicate balance that has been sorely lacking in Amos’s recent output, and anyone who thought she couldn’t pull this sort of epic off any longer should be properly impressed. It is a track that stands among her all-time best compositional work.
There are moments of jaw-dropping virtuosity on American Doll Posse, the kind of moments Tori’s fans live for: unexpected vocal layering and harmonies, piano lines driven home at break-neck speed, and an overall sound that is everything and the kitchen sink. Vocally, after her last two releases, there were whispers of Amos losing her edge—she wasn’t hitting the impossible high notes of her Little Earthquakes days, and this alarmed many listeners.
The worried Toriphiles should be able to rest easy now: Amos’s vocal work on Posse is some of her most accomplished (she has rarely sounded as assured as she does on the mercurial “Beauty of Speed”—a track that melds the music with her voice seamlessly). In “Father’s Son”, Amos muses “So the desert blooms / Strawberry cactus / Can you blame nature / If she’s had enough of us”, proving that lyrically (after the disastrous, saccharine missteps on Beekeeper), she is back in top form after the constraints of her previous two albums’ gargantuan concepts bogged down her gift for using language as a sharp-edged weapon. Few songwriters can turn a phrase quite as compellingly (and literately) as the singer.
Tori hasn’t been as relaxed as she is on Posse since her brilliant, underrated 1999 release, To Venus and Back, an album that came and went without much fanfare. On Venus, Amos let the music, in all of its refreshingly technology-soaked glory, take center stage. Her playfulness showed through with her use of effects on her voice and her decision to distort her piano—which makes the comparison of tracks like the turbulent “Code Red” to Venus tracks the most logical connection to her previous cannon. Many of the Posse tracks could be easily placed on this more experimental album. It seems as though Tori’s regimented control of her sound has suffered from a lack of looseness. With the concepts taking over the show, the music felt a little bit contrived on recent outings, but with Posse, Amos seems to be exhaling deeply.
Amos has employed a cadre of off-the-beaten-path sound in her palette that will disarm the casual listener. At first, it is jarring to go from the jagged transition between the noise of “Fat Slut” into the pomp of “Girl Disappearing”, but Amos is a master of evoking an array of emotions and atmospheres. It is obvious after listening to the new album that the veteran and her crackerjack team of musicians (Matt Chamberlain on percussion and Jon Evans on bass) are at their improvisational, loose best. From the sinister, moody crawl of “Smokey Joe” to the shimmering electro-strut of the effervescent “Bouncing Off Clouds”, the band is in tip-top shape, ready for whatever challenge their task mistress, Amos, throws their way.
For someone who essentially lives in a hermetically-sealed musical world (she resides in the bucolic southern English countryside with her husband and daughter, and works generally with the same collaborators on each project), Amos does a nice job of making a relevant record. She is a middle-aged woman, taking risks and still selling her product. What would benefit her even more, if she’s feeling adventurous next time, is the hiring of an outside producer and editor to curtail her sometimes excessive thematic scope. If Posse is any indication, she is game for anything.
If American Doll Posse would have been edited into a shorter, more concise record (which would have been easy to do—starting with cutting four or five of the “short songs"), it could have been Amos’s best. Instead, it fits nicely alongside her best work, but is a little bit too bogged down with its sometimes preachy, non-descript politics and too many of the usual suspects in the mix (such as the alt-country-influenced ballad “Roosterspur Bridge” and the trite “Devils and Gods”—tracks that deflate the overall structure of the rest of the well-built record). But kudos must be given to the lady for having the guts to start doing high concept performance art at this stage of her already illustrious career.
Tori has made a career of being “Tori”: the personal, confrontational spitfire with a talent as big as her voice. “Tori” is still all over this record, she is just well-hidden by her concepts and her characters; her writing and composition talents are at the forefront. People seem to forget that underneath all of her weaves and slick surfaces, Amos is an exemplary writer and storyteller at heart. She is obviously game to tackle anything and her talent for executing big, unfamiliar sounds is staggering. It’s refreshing to see work from a woman over 40 that is unafraid to challenge governmental policy and corporate marauding, as well as her own unconventional place in pop culture.
Amos produces a wholly relevant musical document that exists as both a nice companion piece to a world on the brink of cataclysmic disaster, but also as a bright-eyed, cautiously optimistic re-affirming of human nature. American Doll Posse also functions separately, as a testament to Amos’s skill and longevity as a performer. There is a myriad of theoretical hoo-ha and mystical bullshit that comes along with every Amos release, but if you can disregard the ephemera and get past “the pantheon of goddesses” (from which Amos appropriates her feminine archetypes), there is an album of excellent pop, astute industry commentary, and flirty intentions begging to be discovered. Amos accomplishes this all while sporting Christian Louboutin heels, couture dresses, and full make-up, to boot. What more can you ask for as a fan? Besides the return of Boys for Pele‘s harpsichord, or a duet with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, that is? "
(^this is my personal favorite review, even if they badmouthed my darling Roosterspur)
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from The Guardian (4 out of 5 stars)
"It's ninth-album time and Amos is about as fashionable as carbohydrates these days, but she remains one of the most ambitious conceptual songwriters on a major label. There are five Toris on the cover - warrior Tori, hippy Tori, voodoo Tori clutching rooster - each of whom symbolises a facet of womanhood. The aim of the 23 songs is to reassemble the segments into a cohesive whole, in the hope of "rousing 18-year-olds to wake up and make [political] choices". It's a tall order, but she makes an inspiring role model, answerable only to her fierce, funny self. Some of her best work in years is here: a solemn, witty shout-out to the commander-in-chief titled Yo George ("I have an allergy to your policies'"), the echo-laden rocker You Can Bring Your Dog, which bawdily likens people to pets, and the distorted squall of Code Red. There's far too much, though; cut to 10 tracks it would have been her one of her most significant records."
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from The Globe (no rating, positive review)
"Some musicians are content to write pleasing songs. Others aspire to deeper meaning. And then there's Tori Amos, who for her ninth album has assembled disparate facets of the feminine essence to reclaim power from the ruling patriarchy.
Longtime devotees will nod in tacit understanding; Amos has been chief oracle to an estrogen-heavy following since releasing her haunting debut, "Little Earthquakes," 15 years ago. The uninitiated and the cynical may well roll their eyes, but they're advised to listen anyway. Grand conceit aside, "American Doll Posse" is a great art-pop album.
It's also a very long album, with 20 tracks clocking in at nearly 70 minutes. The songs are performed by five distinct characters, each of whom Amos created to represent a female archetype that stretches back to the pantheon of Greek goddesses but also encompasses modern womanhood. There's Isabel (Artemis), a politically outspoken photographer, emotionally wounded Clyde (Persephone), swaggering young Pip (Athena), a proud sensualist named Santa (Aphrodite), and of course Tori (Demeter and Dionysus), who embodies both male and female energy. Each girl has her own website, wig, and wardrobe, and they'll alternate as opening act on Amos's forthcoming tour.
The pursuit of wholeness is a recurring theme in Amos's career. Whether or not her fistful of psyches combine to make a complete woman is open to interpretation; more to the point -- and maybe this is the point -- Amos's concept has freed her to make a wonderfully varied album. It opens with Isabel singing "Yo George," a bittersweet, Bush-bashing piano ballad. Next, Tori stomps through the bluesy first single, "Big Wheel," although Santa's euphoric pop gem "Secret Spell" is the most radio-friendly track Amos has written in years. Clyde materializes in a discofied fever-dream, "Bouncing Off Clouds," which paves the way for Pip and her glammy anthem "Teenage Hustling." Santa's saucy come-on, "You Can Bring Your Dog," is pure sex and screaming guitars. And so it goes as the five characters, all Amos, take turns cobbling together the 43-year-old artist's most interesting and -- oddly enough -- cohesive album yet.
If freedom from oppression is the guiding principle, Amos demonstrates her winning strategy in the most fundamental musical terms: She's a heavy rocker, ruminative poet, winsome popster, and mystical enchantress. "American Doll Posse" is a lush sprawl of an album that works with or without the feminist playbook."
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from The Sun (4.5 out of 5 stars)
"WOW! Here’s comfortably the most complex album since last year’s sprawling folk epic Ys by Joanna Newsom. While that album’s five songs spanned nearly 56 minutes, this one’s 23 tracks push nearly 79 minutes (ie the length of a whole CD).
It finds Tori splitting herself into five personalities, Pip (expiraTORIal), Isabel (hisTORIcal), Clyde (cliTORIdes), Santa (sanaTORIum) and Tori herself (terra-TORIes) whatever they mean!
The whole thing sounds barmy but the interwoven song stories of these five characters become the richest of sonic tapestries, delivered with a spring in their step and plenty of kooky piano-driven pop hooks.
There’s also a fierce political edge to proceedings as the Isabel persona lets George Bush have it with both barrels on opener Yo George. Hearing is believing."
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from The Scotsman (4.5 out of 5 stars)
"DESPITE sounding like the name of some fabulously trashy punk band, American Doll Posse - Tori Amos's ninth studio album - is so called after a bunch of alter egos she has created for this project. These five women, each ruled by a different female deity and each with their own rambling blog (you're nobody unless you blog, right?), are listed as vocalists on the sleeve notes, even duetting with each other on some of the tracks. As seen on the album artwork, all look just like Amos in a succession of dramatic wigs and outfits.
Advert for The Scotsman Digital Archive
Much like the apocalyptic futureworld invented by Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails' new Year Zero album, the dolls' personas are fleshed out online, should you care to investigate further. But, for the purposes of basic exposition, rock chick Pip is Warrior Doll; Isabel, pictured with a camera, is Documentary Doll, attempting to take objective historical snapshots; Santa is Party Doll, I'm guessing, as she holds a Martini glass while posing like Samantha from Sex and the City, and Clyde, who apparently works in an art gallery and looks a bit like Nicola from Girls Aloud, right down to the vacant expression, is Damaged Doll. The final Doll is Tori but, as Amos would surely never choose to be seen outside a photographic studio wearing a bright orange wig, she is probably not intended to be taken for the demented chanteuse herself.
Apart from an excuse to dress up and get into online fiction, the value of these creations is unclear, and something of a distraction from the album which, despite its sprawling length, is Amos's most satisfying work for some time and one which reaffirms her reputation as a single-minded, independent, slightly left-field songwriter.
Comprising 23 tracks spanning 80 minutes, American Doll Posse is a lot to digest, as you might expect of an album featuring five distinct "contributors". It's really too long - for starters, you could excise the mundane Secret Spell or the formulaic MOR of Almost Rosey without any detriment to proceedings. But the mercy is that Amos, not the most easily palatable of songwriters, manages to sustain the standard admirably throughout.
Kate Bush was cited frequently as an influence in the early days of Amos's career, but evaporated as a reference point as Amos established herself as an international force - and somewhat diluted her sound. Now the Kate factor returns with a vengeance - in the light, expressive touch on the piano; the soaring vocals; the vulnerability and lyrical references to elemental, untamed nature (wolves feature on a couple of occasions). Beauty of Speed even mentions a "deal with the universe" at one point, echoing Bush's "deal with God" on Running Up That Hill.
There is also a rather Bush-like dedication to "the Cornish faeries" on the sleeve. The album was recorded in Cornwall, and numerous tracks evoke an open, rural setting without sounding particularly pastoral. In places, American Doll Posse feels like the edgier album Bush's 2005 offering Aerial could have been if she wasn't so immersed in blissful domesticity.
The similarity in their styles can be heard explicitly across American Doll Posse - on Bouncing Off Clouds, with its elegantly insistent rhythm, hippyish lyrics and an almost copycat vocal delivery, which is as comforting as fabric conditioner; on Mr Bad Man and Programmable Soda, two jaunty, eccentric, disposable ditties both with dark underbellies; on the intriguing, eerie, layered Smokey Joe and in the natural, lyrical outpouring of Amos's offbeat sensibility which saturates Girl Disappearing.
Teenage Hustling is more strident, featuring obsessive lyrics, theatrical vocal leaps and a confrontational sexual frankness which only PJ Harvey can better. And Body and Soul actually sounds like some Harvey-lite stomp, promising seduction that feels like a threat: "I'll save you from that Sunday sermon, boy I think you need a conversion."
You Can Bring Your Dog is another "come hither" song, swaggering about in big black leather boots, in which Amos pledges to "comfort" her quarry with the assurance that "you'll be too busy boy to sue her for damages".
Enslavement, rather than empowerment, is the theme of Code Red and its dramatic, cascading piano and latent emotional turmoil make it a standout in this generally consistent collection.
The album is peppered with a handful of shorter, pithy tracks, such as Eurofolk parable Velvet Revolution, which make their mark but don't hang around, and with reflective piano ballads, such as the tender Roosterspur Bridge and the undulating closing track Dragon.
This latter's mantra, "don't tell me a woman did this to you", resonates so truthfully, even personally, that one wonders why Amos dreamt up the fictional bloggers in wigs. If, in an iPod world, listeners need greater inducement to listen to an album from start to finish, then it is the quality of the songs here which will persuade them, not the novelty personas."
(i really liked this one because of all the Kate Bush references, of course)
***
must say i'm really surprised the album's been getting so much support from the specialized press. its concept seemed so ludicrous, almost impossible to make work, and somehow she did it. i guess it's cuz the music is so damn good no matter how much she dressed it up in those ridiculous (in a good way) wigs. i think the general consensus is that, had she made the album about a third shorter, it would be even better to appreciate. but oh well, an artist must make sacrifices for the sake of their artistic realization. god, i love this record.
from Rolling Stone (3 out of 5 stars):
"Of the twenty-three tracks on her ninth studio album, Tori Amos only takes credit for singing five of them. The others, liner notes indicate, are vocalized by alternate Amoses named Clyde, Isabel, Santa and Pip -- four mythical beauties, each with her own blog! -- intended to represent different parts of the female psyche. With the exception of "Big Wheel," where Amos loses points for proclaiming herself a MILF, she saves American Doll Posse's best material for her own damn self: the arena-rock ballad "Digital Ghost," the chilly "Father's Son," which keeps all but Amos' fairy-tale croon and agile piano-playing buried low in the mix, and "Code Red," whose gothic stomp is classic Tori. Glam rave-ups like "You Can Bring Your Dog," snowflake-perfect piano ballads elaborated with strings ("Girl Disappearing") and even missteps like the Ashlee Simpson-meets-Mr. Bungle rocker "Teenage Hustling" live harmoniously amid the more typically Tori tunes. In typical Tori fashion, there's way too much conceptual malarkey surrounding the songs, but if you can ignore her fake posse, you'll find this is Amos' best album in many years. "
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from PopMatters.com (8 out of 10)
"For the occasion of the release of her ninth studio album (her third with new label Epic), singer-songwriter-turned-towering-concept princess Tori Amos has birthed five personas—the titular “dolls” of American Doll Posse: “Pip”, “Santa”, “Isabel”, “Clyde”, and “Tori”. Each girl has her own specific wardrobe (Unconditional and La Petite Salope will be among the ladies’ couturiers), hair and make-up and her own catalogue of songs on the record. The character of “Tori” even dons a red wig.
The ladies have a lot on their minds, but mainly, American Doll Posse is a record that wants to know why we are at war, and what we are going to do to clean up our mess. Amos has always questioned the patriarchal authority, but this time she actually begins a record with a song called “Yo, George”; a finger-pointing 90-second interlude obviously directed at our commander-in-chief that asks if we are living in the age of “the madness of King George”. From there, she really lets it rip.
Humanistic politics are engrained in many of the songs: “Almost Rosey” is a clear war-time anthem, with vaguely activist lyrics like “When I hear of one more bomb / We have all been robbed of song / And nightingales who throw their arms up / When is enough enough?”, but there is also a lot of “classic Tori” present: gorgeous string quartet arrangements courtesy of John Phillip Shenale (on the Leonard Cohen-esque “Girl Disappearing"), a touch of humor (on the raucous stomper of a single “Big Wheel”, where Tori actually refers to herself as a “MILF"), and a smattering of keyboard instruments (Bosendorfer, electric piano, Clavichord, Wurlitzer, Meletron) all played by Amos, often simultaneously. While the tempo is more brisk than previous Amos slow-burners, the big surprise here comes from the shocking use of guitar—both electric and acoustic.
“Body and Soul”, a schizophrenic, frenetic “duet” between Pip and Santa, is a muscular track that stands among Amos’s career-best attempts at a full-out proper rock and roll song. The “girl and her piano” myths about Amos should be put to rest once and for all: the woman is fully capable of letting her keys fall by the wayside and allowing a monster guitar riff to take center stage. Then there is the full-tilt, sex-drenched swagger of “Teenage Hustling”, a track that begins innocently enough on the piano and then builds to a sonic assault on all the corporate lackeys who have ever doubted Amos; she has, after all, been “in the business” since she was 14. Any music executive who wants to get between Amos and her music in the future might want first give this song a listen for a taste of what a pissed-off “girl with a piano” is gifted enough to pull off. These particular tracks re-invigorate Amos’s catalogue with their inventive, sometimes shocking use of guitars and effects.
Credited to “Mac Aladdin” (it is rumored that this is a pseudonym for Amos’s husband and sound engineer Mark Hawley), the guitar work on Posse sometimes verges dangerously into 1980s hair metal territory (sort of like Tori’s debut band, Y Kant Tori Read, as a matter of fact). There are little blues riffs that are harmless cheese, as if Tori was trying to capture an “edgy” sound, but couldn’t quite get there (most notably on the track “You Can Bring Your Dog”, which is still superior to most pop guitar jams currently being produced). Most of the time, though, the guitar work (which dominates Tori’s piano at times) is a nice nod to the great rock and roll bands of the 1970s: The Stooges, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, the Beatles, and Queen ("Digital Ghost” boasts a gloriously guitar-zapped bridge that is as close to arena rock as Tori has ever gotten). There is an air of opera-rock all throughout.
If it sounds like Tori has become the ultimate drag queen version of herself, that is because it is partly true: musically, this record’s closest kin would have to be the soundtrack for John Cameron Mitchell’s expert musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. There is a cabaret element on Tori’s record, as well as a cheeky sense of humor (if you don’t believe me, there is a thirty second interlude called “Fat Slut"), that permeates and lifts spirits. Short, playful tunes like “Velvet Revolution” even ape Eastern European flair with gypsy-jazz-esque mandolins jangling in the distance, while “Secret Spell” sounds like a life lesson from a woman who has seen it all.
The video for “Big Wheel”, which introduces the Posse characters, plays out in hysterically wry fashion: each woman vamps and shakes while winking at the camera. It is a very natural progression for the singer, who is always keen on discussing her love of musicals (from The Sound of Music to Mary Poppins). While at first glance it is shockingly theatrical for someone who is mainly known for being a confessional prodigy, it is also a nice change.
For her world tour this summer, Amos plans on embarking on a dramatic production of gargantuan proportions. Each night she will appear as one of the posse on stage for the beginning of the show, and midway through, “Tori” will take over. For those who know how Amos’s raw, invigorating live show unfolds, this is a considerable shock. She is doing a multi-media extravaganza. It’s a stroke of genius that she will play as different characters—Tori has fans that follow her tours the world over, and this will ensure they get a unique experience each time. She is really giving her fans what they want, more than almost any other artist working.
It’s a bold maneuver on Tori’s part to ask her oft-discussed fan base to take this leap of faith with her, but it will be rewarding for those with a little bit of vision—not to mention it will ensure that shrewd marketer Amos will move a lot units and fill seats at her upcoming shows. She hasn’t had this good of a gimmick in years.
Tori has a habit of getting lost in this sort of conceptual record, but she capably delivers every style of music her fans have come to expect from her on Posse. It is a little bit of everything she does well: rock, ballads, etc. Also, since her departure from Atlantic to Epic, she has displayed a keen sense for crafting some of the most pleasant pop of her career. “Big Wheel” may be a bit honky-tonky for the casual Amos fanatic, but at its heart, it is just a fun romp. As Amos sneers “Baby, I don’t need your cash / Mama’s got it all in hand”, you can practically mop the sarcasm up off the floor. Amos gets the reputation of being supremely self-serious and reverent; people forget she is a funny woman with a razor-sharp sense of humor.
After her last major releases (full length studio albums Scarlet’s Walk and The Beekeeper; and the archival Tales of a Librarian and A Piano), Amos faced criticism from fans and music critics for being a little too prolific. Scarlet and Beekeeper were both 18-plus tracks, buried in towering high-concepts (which revolved around things like “The Corn Mother” and her infinite mystique). Each record boasted an Amos who was changed by motherhood into a softer, more crowd-pleasing artist (who wrote syrupy ditties like the garbage of “Ribbons Undone” from Beekeeper, which disturbingly featured a lyric about her “little pony growing up fast"). Her once edgy sound was replaced with something tamer, and many fans were worried that their beloved goddess of angst was gone forever.
In Posse‘s closer, “Dragon”, Amos is at her absolute finest: vocals up front and center, fairytale piano straight out of a Brothers Grimm piece, and a creepy-crawly sensibility that mixes with a pristine, almost cutesy tone. It’s the kind of delicate balance that has been sorely lacking in Amos’s recent output, and anyone who thought she couldn’t pull this sort of epic off any longer should be properly impressed. It is a track that stands among her all-time best compositional work.
There are moments of jaw-dropping virtuosity on American Doll Posse, the kind of moments Tori’s fans live for: unexpected vocal layering and harmonies, piano lines driven home at break-neck speed, and an overall sound that is everything and the kitchen sink. Vocally, after her last two releases, there were whispers of Amos losing her edge—she wasn’t hitting the impossible high notes of her Little Earthquakes days, and this alarmed many listeners.
The worried Toriphiles should be able to rest easy now: Amos’s vocal work on Posse is some of her most accomplished (she has rarely sounded as assured as she does on the mercurial “Beauty of Speed”—a track that melds the music with her voice seamlessly). In “Father’s Son”, Amos muses “So the desert blooms / Strawberry cactus / Can you blame nature / If she’s had enough of us”, proving that lyrically (after the disastrous, saccharine missteps on Beekeeper), she is back in top form after the constraints of her previous two albums’ gargantuan concepts bogged down her gift for using language as a sharp-edged weapon. Few songwriters can turn a phrase quite as compellingly (and literately) as the singer.
Tori hasn’t been as relaxed as she is on Posse since her brilliant, underrated 1999 release, To Venus and Back, an album that came and went without much fanfare. On Venus, Amos let the music, in all of its refreshingly technology-soaked glory, take center stage. Her playfulness showed through with her use of effects on her voice and her decision to distort her piano—which makes the comparison of tracks like the turbulent “Code Red” to Venus tracks the most logical connection to her previous cannon. Many of the Posse tracks could be easily placed on this more experimental album. It seems as though Tori’s regimented control of her sound has suffered from a lack of looseness. With the concepts taking over the show, the music felt a little bit contrived on recent outings, but with Posse, Amos seems to be exhaling deeply.
Amos has employed a cadre of off-the-beaten-path sound in her palette that will disarm the casual listener. At first, it is jarring to go from the jagged transition between the noise of “Fat Slut” into the pomp of “Girl Disappearing”, but Amos is a master of evoking an array of emotions and atmospheres. It is obvious after listening to the new album that the veteran and her crackerjack team of musicians (Matt Chamberlain on percussion and Jon Evans on bass) are at their improvisational, loose best. From the sinister, moody crawl of “Smokey Joe” to the shimmering electro-strut of the effervescent “Bouncing Off Clouds”, the band is in tip-top shape, ready for whatever challenge their task mistress, Amos, throws their way.
For someone who essentially lives in a hermetically-sealed musical world (she resides in the bucolic southern English countryside with her husband and daughter, and works generally with the same collaborators on each project), Amos does a nice job of making a relevant record. She is a middle-aged woman, taking risks and still selling her product. What would benefit her even more, if she’s feeling adventurous next time, is the hiring of an outside producer and editor to curtail her sometimes excessive thematic scope. If Posse is any indication, she is game for anything.
If American Doll Posse would have been edited into a shorter, more concise record (which would have been easy to do—starting with cutting four or five of the “short songs"), it could have been Amos’s best. Instead, it fits nicely alongside her best work, but is a little bit too bogged down with its sometimes preachy, non-descript politics and too many of the usual suspects in the mix (such as the alt-country-influenced ballad “Roosterspur Bridge” and the trite “Devils and Gods”—tracks that deflate the overall structure of the rest of the well-built record). But kudos must be given to the lady for having the guts to start doing high concept performance art at this stage of her already illustrious career.
Tori has made a career of being “Tori”: the personal, confrontational spitfire with a talent as big as her voice. “Tori” is still all over this record, she is just well-hidden by her concepts and her characters; her writing and composition talents are at the forefront. People seem to forget that underneath all of her weaves and slick surfaces, Amos is an exemplary writer and storyteller at heart. She is obviously game to tackle anything and her talent for executing big, unfamiliar sounds is staggering. It’s refreshing to see work from a woman over 40 that is unafraid to challenge governmental policy and corporate marauding, as well as her own unconventional place in pop culture.
Amos produces a wholly relevant musical document that exists as both a nice companion piece to a world on the brink of cataclysmic disaster, but also as a bright-eyed, cautiously optimistic re-affirming of human nature. American Doll Posse also functions separately, as a testament to Amos’s skill and longevity as a performer. There is a myriad of theoretical hoo-ha and mystical bullshit that comes along with every Amos release, but if you can disregard the ephemera and get past “the pantheon of goddesses” (from which Amos appropriates her feminine archetypes), there is an album of excellent pop, astute industry commentary, and flirty intentions begging to be discovered. Amos accomplishes this all while sporting Christian Louboutin heels, couture dresses, and full make-up, to boot. What more can you ask for as a fan? Besides the return of Boys for Pele‘s harpsichord, or a duet with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, that is? "
(^this is my personal favorite review, even if they badmouthed my darling Roosterspur)
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from The Guardian (4 out of 5 stars)
"It's ninth-album time and Amos is about as fashionable as carbohydrates these days, but she remains one of the most ambitious conceptual songwriters on a major label. There are five Toris on the cover - warrior Tori, hippy Tori, voodoo Tori clutching rooster - each of whom symbolises a facet of womanhood. The aim of the 23 songs is to reassemble the segments into a cohesive whole, in the hope of "rousing 18-year-olds to wake up and make [political] choices". It's a tall order, but she makes an inspiring role model, answerable only to her fierce, funny self. Some of her best work in years is here: a solemn, witty shout-out to the commander-in-chief titled Yo George ("I have an allergy to your policies'"), the echo-laden rocker You Can Bring Your Dog, which bawdily likens people to pets, and the distorted squall of Code Red. There's far too much, though; cut to 10 tracks it would have been her one of her most significant records."
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from The Globe (no rating, positive review)
"Some musicians are content to write pleasing songs. Others aspire to deeper meaning. And then there's Tori Amos, who for her ninth album has assembled disparate facets of the feminine essence to reclaim power from the ruling patriarchy.
Longtime devotees will nod in tacit understanding; Amos has been chief oracle to an estrogen-heavy following since releasing her haunting debut, "Little Earthquakes," 15 years ago. The uninitiated and the cynical may well roll their eyes, but they're advised to listen anyway. Grand conceit aside, "American Doll Posse" is a great art-pop album.
It's also a very long album, with 20 tracks clocking in at nearly 70 minutes. The songs are performed by five distinct characters, each of whom Amos created to represent a female archetype that stretches back to the pantheon of Greek goddesses but also encompasses modern womanhood. There's Isabel (Artemis), a politically outspoken photographer, emotionally wounded Clyde (Persephone), swaggering young Pip (Athena), a proud sensualist named Santa (Aphrodite), and of course Tori (Demeter and Dionysus), who embodies both male and female energy. Each girl has her own website, wig, and wardrobe, and they'll alternate as opening act on Amos's forthcoming tour.
The pursuit of wholeness is a recurring theme in Amos's career. Whether or not her fistful of psyches combine to make a complete woman is open to interpretation; more to the point -- and maybe this is the point -- Amos's concept has freed her to make a wonderfully varied album. It opens with Isabel singing "Yo George," a bittersweet, Bush-bashing piano ballad. Next, Tori stomps through the bluesy first single, "Big Wheel," although Santa's euphoric pop gem "Secret Spell" is the most radio-friendly track Amos has written in years. Clyde materializes in a discofied fever-dream, "Bouncing Off Clouds," which paves the way for Pip and her glammy anthem "Teenage Hustling." Santa's saucy come-on, "You Can Bring Your Dog," is pure sex and screaming guitars. And so it goes as the five characters, all Amos, take turns cobbling together the 43-year-old artist's most interesting and -- oddly enough -- cohesive album yet.
If freedom from oppression is the guiding principle, Amos demonstrates her winning strategy in the most fundamental musical terms: She's a heavy rocker, ruminative poet, winsome popster, and mystical enchantress. "American Doll Posse" is a lush sprawl of an album that works with or without the feminist playbook."
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from The Sun (4.5 out of 5 stars)
"WOW! Here’s comfortably the most complex album since last year’s sprawling folk epic Ys by Joanna Newsom. While that album’s five songs spanned nearly 56 minutes, this one’s 23 tracks push nearly 79 minutes (ie the length of a whole CD).
It finds Tori splitting herself into five personalities, Pip (expiraTORIal), Isabel (hisTORIcal), Clyde (cliTORIdes), Santa (sanaTORIum) and Tori herself (terra-TORIes) whatever they mean!
The whole thing sounds barmy but the interwoven song stories of these five characters become the richest of sonic tapestries, delivered with a spring in their step and plenty of kooky piano-driven pop hooks.
There’s also a fierce political edge to proceedings as the Isabel persona lets George Bush have it with both barrels on opener Yo George. Hearing is believing."
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from The Scotsman (4.5 out of 5 stars)
"DESPITE sounding like the name of some fabulously trashy punk band, American Doll Posse - Tori Amos's ninth studio album - is so called after a bunch of alter egos she has created for this project. These five women, each ruled by a different female deity and each with their own rambling blog (you're nobody unless you blog, right?), are listed as vocalists on the sleeve notes, even duetting with each other on some of the tracks. As seen on the album artwork, all look just like Amos in a succession of dramatic wigs and outfits.
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Much like the apocalyptic futureworld invented by Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails' new Year Zero album, the dolls' personas are fleshed out online, should you care to investigate further. But, for the purposes of basic exposition, rock chick Pip is Warrior Doll; Isabel, pictured with a camera, is Documentary Doll, attempting to take objective historical snapshots; Santa is Party Doll, I'm guessing, as she holds a Martini glass while posing like Samantha from Sex and the City, and Clyde, who apparently works in an art gallery and looks a bit like Nicola from Girls Aloud, right down to the vacant expression, is Damaged Doll. The final Doll is Tori but, as Amos would surely never choose to be seen outside a photographic studio wearing a bright orange wig, she is probably not intended to be taken for the demented chanteuse herself.
Apart from an excuse to dress up and get into online fiction, the value of these creations is unclear, and something of a distraction from the album which, despite its sprawling length, is Amos's most satisfying work for some time and one which reaffirms her reputation as a single-minded, independent, slightly left-field songwriter.
Comprising 23 tracks spanning 80 minutes, American Doll Posse is a lot to digest, as you might expect of an album featuring five distinct "contributors". It's really too long - for starters, you could excise the mundane Secret Spell or the formulaic MOR of Almost Rosey without any detriment to proceedings. But the mercy is that Amos, not the most easily palatable of songwriters, manages to sustain the standard admirably throughout.
Kate Bush was cited frequently as an influence in the early days of Amos's career, but evaporated as a reference point as Amos established herself as an international force - and somewhat diluted her sound. Now the Kate factor returns with a vengeance - in the light, expressive touch on the piano; the soaring vocals; the vulnerability and lyrical references to elemental, untamed nature (wolves feature on a couple of occasions). Beauty of Speed even mentions a "deal with the universe" at one point, echoing Bush's "deal with God" on Running Up That Hill.
There is also a rather Bush-like dedication to "the Cornish faeries" on the sleeve. The album was recorded in Cornwall, and numerous tracks evoke an open, rural setting without sounding particularly pastoral. In places, American Doll Posse feels like the edgier album Bush's 2005 offering Aerial could have been if she wasn't so immersed in blissful domesticity.
The similarity in their styles can be heard explicitly across American Doll Posse - on Bouncing Off Clouds, with its elegantly insistent rhythm, hippyish lyrics and an almost copycat vocal delivery, which is as comforting as fabric conditioner; on Mr Bad Man and Programmable Soda, two jaunty, eccentric, disposable ditties both with dark underbellies; on the intriguing, eerie, layered Smokey Joe and in the natural, lyrical outpouring of Amos's offbeat sensibility which saturates Girl Disappearing.
Teenage Hustling is more strident, featuring obsessive lyrics, theatrical vocal leaps and a confrontational sexual frankness which only PJ Harvey can better. And Body and Soul actually sounds like some Harvey-lite stomp, promising seduction that feels like a threat: "I'll save you from that Sunday sermon, boy I think you need a conversion."
You Can Bring Your Dog is another "come hither" song, swaggering about in big black leather boots, in which Amos pledges to "comfort" her quarry with the assurance that "you'll be too busy boy to sue her for damages".
Enslavement, rather than empowerment, is the theme of Code Red and its dramatic, cascading piano and latent emotional turmoil make it a standout in this generally consistent collection.
The album is peppered with a handful of shorter, pithy tracks, such as Eurofolk parable Velvet Revolution, which make their mark but don't hang around, and with reflective piano ballads, such as the tender Roosterspur Bridge and the undulating closing track Dragon.
This latter's mantra, "don't tell me a woman did this to you", resonates so truthfully, even personally, that one wonders why Amos dreamt up the fictional bloggers in wigs. If, in an iPod world, listeners need greater inducement to listen to an album from start to finish, then it is the quality of the songs here which will persuade them, not the novelty personas."
(i really liked this one because of all the Kate Bush references, of course)
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must say i'm really surprised the album's been getting so much support from the specialized press. its concept seemed so ludicrous, almost impossible to make work, and somehow she did it. i guess it's cuz the music is so damn good no matter how much she dressed it up in those ridiculous (in a good way) wigs. i think the general consensus is that, had she made the album about a third shorter, it would be even better to appreciate. but oh well, an artist must make sacrifices for the sake of their artistic realization. god, i love this record.
