Post Description

Rock, pop.

Thirty five years since she arrived, Tori Amos is still as startlingly urgent and essential. On this, her eighteenth album, she holds a mirror up to society and delivers in a way that shows she still has something to say. Artists with career lengths a fraction of hers may have descended into the heritage trail/greatest hits route, but not her. 

Before the album was released, it was clear that this was going to be something special, as well as something dark. When dealing with dragons it’s not as in the prog-rock sense of fantasy, but the real world, in way that might evoke Pan’s Labyrinth or The Handmaid’s Tale. 

in Times of Dragons unfolds as an allegorical story about power, resistance and transformation in an era defined by political upheaval, blending mythic storytelling with urgent contemporary themes.  At the centre of the album is a fictionalised version of Amos who finds herself trapped in a marriage to a dangerous billionaire before embarking on a journey across America, encountering allies and adversaries as she searches for freedom. 

The urgency and unease starts before she has even sung a note. Album opener ‘Shush’ calls us to attention. where the protagonist realises the danger she faces. Over the album, she begins to change, gradually transforming into the dragon she will need to become in order to confront the forces pursuing her.

Next up is the title track where she leaves that life behind and begins her journey. Reflecting on the daughter she’s been separated from and the world she’s fleeing, the song captures the shock, uncertainty and determination of that first step into the unknown.

Over the course of the record she encounters a cast of characters who help her – from friends offering refuge to the Gasoline Girls, a collective of women who “tend the fire” and stand together in defiance. In lesser hands the message of ‘Stronger Together’ could have been merely a platitude, but this, the penultimate track is for me the album’s standout track, a call for unity, that makes your heart soar.

Another strong album from Tori Amos, that reveals more and more with each successive play. Hopefully the time of these particular dragons will soon be over, yet I think, nay, know, that Tori Amos will always have something knew to say. There’s many of us here who still want to hear it.

I was privileged to see her on her recent tour before the album came out. The handful of songs she played from the album were part of a career-spanning set; it would have been interesting to hear it as a song cycle live, but that would have been entirely up to her. Suffice to say, she swells her catalogue with new songs that hold up well with those that first shot her to fame

Tracks:
01. Shush
02. In Times of Dragons
03. Provincetown
04. St. Teresa
05. Gasoline Girls
06. Ode to Minnesota
07. Fanny Faudrey
08. Veins
09. Strawberry Moon
10. Song of Sorrow
11. Flood
12. Pyrite
13. Tempest
14. Angelshark
15. Blue Lotus
16. Stronger Together
17. 23 Peaks

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBZglUW3yuc