News: ADP Review in New York Times

“American Doll Posse” isn’t quite the fans-only project it might first seem to be. Although the album’s conceit might seem heavy-handed, Ms. Amos treats the whole thing like a game: this is her most entertaining album in years, precisely because she keeps switching among characters and styles.

Phillip tipped us off to this favorable review of American Doll Posse from the New York Times.

New York Times ADP Review
by Kelefa Sanneh

Tori Amos recently announced that her new album was “an opportunity to reclaim the segmented pieces of the female psyche” — and, she added, to “reunite them.” Is that all? To this end, Ms. Amos has created five personae — Isabel, Clyde, Pip, Santa and, confusingly, Tori — to sing the 23 songs on “American Doll Posse.” Before you ask: yes, each persona does maintain a personal Web site.

By this point in her extraordinary career, 15 years removed from her blockbuster solo debut, “Little Earthquakes,” Ms. Amos has weeded out most of the casual listeners from her fan base; the tourists are gone and the Torists remain. But “American Doll Posse” isn’t quite the fans-only project it might first seem to be. Although the album’s conceit might seem heavy-handed, Ms. Amos treats the whole thing like a game: this is her most entertaining album in years, precisely because she keeps switching among characters and styles.

Not that everything works. The first song, “Yo George,” is a shopworn political lament. (She murmurs, “Where have we gone wrong America?/Mr. Lincoln we can’t seem/to find you anywhere.”) But it’s over in little more than a minute (one upside to cramming 23 tracks onto a CD), replaced by a jagged and mischievous Southern-rock song, “Big Wheel.” This album is full of pleasant surprises: the R.E.M. flourish that opens “Secret Spell”; the sleek bass line in “Bouncing Off Clouds”; the 90-second orchestral daydream that is “Programmable Soda.” A message to lapsed Tori Amos fans: come back. You won’t be bored.