Album Review: Tori Amos – In Times of Dragons

Tori Amos has never been an artist to follow the obvious path. Across a career spanning more than three decades, she’s built a catalogue defined by intricate piano work, fiercely personal song writing, and a willingness to confront the darker corners of both the self and the world around her. In Times of Dragons, released via Decca Records, arrives as her seventeenth studio album, and the title alone suggests something mythic, symbolic, or perhaps even combative. It comes at a point in her career where you’d expect reinvention to almost be pointless — and you’d hope to hear an artist continuing to explore, question, and challenge, rather than settle. So… now it’s time to find out if there is still fire in the dragon, or if it’s flames have faded into just smoke and memory at this point.

Kicking off with Shush, Amos gives us a hypnotic, piano-driven track which only Amos could do – this is an atypical Tori Amos song.  Following on is title track In Times of Dragons – which has great transition from slow to fast tempo, and is definitely less piano heavy that I’d think of a Tori Amos track, but is a solid contemporary indie track, where Provincetown returns to the piano-led classic Tori Amos ensemble… but I did love the inclusion of the harpsichord on this one, and is a strong contender for the best track on the album, as is St. Teresa, where I love Amos’ vocal range and the darker mood of the track. The more whimsically light piano that begins Gasoline Girls moves into a more classic rock sound, while there’s a clear political message to Ode to Minnesota around the protesting (not a huge fan of political messaging in music tbh).

Fanny Faudrey definitely gives me Wednesday from Scarlet’s Walk vibes, where Veins feels like it wouldn’t be out of place on To Venus and Back, with daughter Natashya Hawley on duet (and writing), as she also does on the slower, stripped back Strawberry Moon, while the emotional Song of Sorrow strikes a sombre mood with stunning melody and arrangement, whereas the similarly sublimely arranged Flood provides the third of my top three tracks on the album (in no particular order).

Great synth use in the very Stevie Nicks-esque Pyrite leads to another stunning use of piano to create a very atmospheric track in Tempest, and Angelshark follows with a more soothing, gentle feel to it, all the while backed with a very Native American drum beat, surely inspired from Amos’ Cherokee ancestry. Blue Lotus has some fantastic harmonisation later on, and penultimate track Stronger Together is another one written and duetted with Natashya… though this one, for me, was the weakest of the three. We round off the album strongly with 23 Peaks – a track with the feel of a choral symphony, with her raw vocals providing a hymn-like quality… very moving.

In Times of Dragons is a very strong album. Amos is at her best here, and fans will, I think, hold this album in very high regard.  She doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel – the piano-heavy tracks are aplenty, as are the analogue set ups – and I don’t think there are enough superlatives to adequately describe her vocal range and tone, even as the singer enters her sixties… she’s still got it. If you’re not a fan of her previous work, I’d suggest this isn’t the album for you, but for fans and neutrals it is certainly worth a listen.

Graeme