News: The Scotsman Night of Hunters Review

Appearing this past weekend in Scotland on Sunday and on The Scotsman’s ebsite today, Colin Somerville’s review of Night of Hunters calls it “intensely personal” and “a real record by a real artist,” while noting that its song-cycle concept makes it a cohesive whole. No score is given, but it’s certainly tips the scales on the “good” side.

Thanks to Erin for bringing it to our attention!

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Album review: Tori Amos, Night Of Hunters

Published Date: 20 September 2011
By COLIN SOMERVILLE

****

Deutsche Gramophone, £13.99

Amos’s latest album sees her spinning a fairytale as only she can – “I am the hunter and the hunted,” she croons on The Chase, a song which also sees her take on the persona of a grain of corn and a black and red hen.

It’s bonkers, and strangely English for a bona fide American eccentric, yet mesmeric and charged with a pristine eroticism.

The title song finds her “keeping watch over children’s dreams,” reassuringly confirming her more mature status as a mental Mary Poppins.

Musically this is piano rich, like a West End musical without the clunky dialogue.

It is intensely personal, engaging the listener in one-to-one orchestral combat as befits a record on a classical label.

Fans of the Amos sound might find more conventional songs such as Job’s Coffin make for easier listening.

But Night Of Hunters is such a well-considered concept that it is difficult to listen to tracks in isolation without the feeling of only partly sharing the desired experience.

Isn’t it strange that this album emerges just weeks before the hotly anticipated new Kate Bush record, and the two have never sounded so like two peas from the same musical pod?

This is a real record by a real artist, a rare thing in this age of disposable culture.

Download this: All of it

This article was first published in Scotland On Sunday, 18 September, 2011