News: The Republican AATS Review

Kevin O’Hare reviewed Abnormally Attracted to Sin in his latest Playback column for western Massachusetts’ The Republican newspaper. He gives the album 2½ stars but doesn’t really say much about it beyond declaring the music stale and hoisting the lazy Kate Bush comparison.

Tori Amos, “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” (Universal Republic). 2.5 stars.

By this point you’re either a fan of Tori Amos’ atmospheric brand of mystical songwriting or you pressed the pause button a long, long time ago.

There’s simply not a lot new going on with the red-haired pianist, and most of the songs on “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” could have fit onto practically anything else she’s released during the past 15 years.

She’s still filling a void that was left by Kate Bush’s apparent retirement from the music industry ages ago, though Amos has rarely matched the depth of Bush’s songwriting or the intricacy of her arrangements. Yet she has her moments, like on the uncharacteristically feisty and borderline-playful “Not Dying Today,” or the colorful “That Guy” which has a bit of a modern-day Billie Holiday aspect to it.

Deluxe editions of “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” are accompanied by a DVD featuring “visualettes” (didn’t those used to be called videos?) for each track. That sort of thing can indeed help make sense of Amos’ work which is often on the convoluted side, to put it kindly.