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An excellent review of Scarlet's Walk sent to me by Anne! Read it at rockymountainnews.com or below.
CD reviews: Seventh disc the charm for Amos
Tori Amos
Scarlet's Walk
Epic Records
Grade: A-
By Mark Brown
If living well is truly the best revenge, Tori Amos has just delivered the ultimate payback.
After being unceremoniously dropped from Atlantic Records, her home for a decade, while touring last year, Amos was (wisely) snapped up by Epic Records.
There's gotta be a perverse sense of humor behind Amos' arty facade, because Scarlet's Walk is precisely the kind of album Atlantic was surely hoping for year after year, packed full of memorable hooks, tender lyrics and gorgeous harmonies, tailor-made for Amos' fan base and radio. She's not sounded this self-assured and transcendent in years.
In fact, the Sept. 11-inspired Scarlet's Walk, due in stores next week, is easily Amos' most accessible, engaging album since her 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes. After last year's Strange Little Girls, featuring experimental treatment of cover songs by the likes of Neil Young and Eminem, Amos is back writing traditionally structured piano-based songs - and no, it doesn't sound like a retread of her earlier work.
Taxi Ride and Crazy, in particular, are standout tracks, with the latter filled with lush, dreamy vocals. The songs are thinly linked by a theme of a journey across the United States, but each track stands on its own as a distinct statement (if sometimes convoluted, as only Amos can).
This album would be a triumph under any circumstances, but given that it's her seventh release in a decade, Scarlet's Walk shows Amos as the artist her most fervent fans always believed her to be.
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