News: The Times AATS Review

The Times’ Dan Cairns takes Tori to task for Abnormally Attracted to Sin, giving it 2 out of 5 stars in a short but pointed review.

Tori Amos: Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Dan Cairns

Her oft-stated contention that much of her music emerges, unbidden, from the ether, and that she is no more than a conduit, gives Tori Amos a get-out clause. Being an artist who is vehicular, rather than imposing her own will on the albums she releases, allows the Cornwall-based American a freedom to roam (and indulge herself) that the rigour of creative striving — which plenty of songwriters seem to put up with — might, she implies, curtail. Her 10th studio album, all 18 tracks of it, cries out for a firm editorial hand, for someone to take Amos aside and say: “Look, love, why don’t we try making a record without the ether for once?” Shapeless, piano-led disquisitions on sin, sex and war lack any of the shape and sharpness her best songs had; instead, they meander aimlessly, pointlessly. That’s the ether for you: no discipline.