Tori Amos – “American Doll Posse” (2007)

Look, for my money, Tori Amos is as rock and roll as they come. This is a woman who suckles piglets, damn it – beat that, Osbourne. On the other hand, it’s been a few years since she put out a record that was anywhere near essential. “Scarlet’s Walk” was bland, “The Beekeeper” felt ever so slightly phoned in and the collection of covers had it’s moments but could only ever be seen as an exercise in marking time. What all three records had in common, however, where elaborate, impenetrable ‘concepts’. More work, in fact, seemed to have put in on the concepts than the songs.

“American Doll Posse” is no different in terms of an ambitious central conceit (five characters, including “Tori” sing the sings, sometimes providing backing vocals for each, emblematic of an attempt to unify the fractured feminine psyche…). Thankfully, as with portions of Neil Young’s Greendale, the concept this time seems to have at least partially reinvigorated Tori’s muse.

Things don’t start out promisingly. The one and half minute “Yo George” is as grim as it sounds. Dubya has bad policies. Abraham Lincoln is missing. Thankfully, the next three songs pick up sharply. Her best records (“Under The Pink”, “Boys For Pele”) have always had an abundance of sharp, creative arrangements and melodies underpinned by that dynamic, relentlessly exploratory piano technique – at once thunderous rhythm section and lea instrument. “Big Wheel”, “Bouncing Off Clouds” and “Teenage Hustling” live up to their predecessors, moving between edge-of-funkiness of “Big Wheel” and four-square rockers like Fleetwood Mac powered by Elton John (in 1975, that would have been a good thing, ok?).

Thereafter, it gets a bit hit and miss but with twenty one songs squashed into seventy eight minutes, there’s plenty of scope for constructing your own director’s cut. Mine included the the up-tempo pop of “Secret Spell”, “Posse Bonus”’s slightly disturbing demands to ‘eat your broccoli’ and “Dragon”, the big let’s-wrap-it-all-up ballad that concludes the whole curious affair.

At this point in time, I don’t know if anyone beyond fans is listening but if Amos dropped off your radar ten years ago, you might want to think about picking up where you left off. Me, I’m just glad of a new Tori Amos record that finally makes me (almost) listen all the way through.

Find out rather more than you probably need to know about Santa, Pip, and the gang at or the inevitable Tori MySpace.