Album Review: Tori Amos – Ocean To Ocean
2 min read
No sophisticated music collection is complete without the grippingly unique work of American artist Tori Amos. Her precocious musical talent enabled the generation of a long and luscious musical career stretching across multiple decades. Many topics and musical styles can be discovered within her sizeable discography, the latest addition to which is her sixteenth studio album Ocean to Ocean.
The level of sophistication Amos brings to the music scene is exampled even within the very first track of her new album, mysteriously entitled Addition of Light Divided, while it is the theme of water which keeps cropping up throughout the album. It is used as a metaphor in songs such as the title track – a slow pendulum of percussion and rhythmic vocals – as well as Swim to New York State, where the vastness of an ocean is loosely likened to the complexity of love and used as an imagery tool to describe the pain felt from being separated from one’s lover.
Musically, Ocean to Ocean is a melting pot of different instrumentation, joined together with Amos’ trademark spiritual and ethereal vocals. However, the album does possess pop sensibilities, often heard within the vocals, the riffs and the drum beats employed, particularly, for example, in Spies. Focusing specifically on the vocals, the alternating genotype of their production treatment heard within songs such as the beautifully dark Flowers Burn to Gold and 29 Years keeps them and the album interesting. This diversity of instrumentation and production even stretches so far as including uncharacteristic and almost electronic-like sonic elements in Metal Water Wood and 29 Years.
Despite the assortment of stylings heard within Tori Amos’ latest album Ocean to Ocean, the listening experience she takes you on stays on one, albeit meandering, path and is quite clearly and distinctly the work of an artist so many have come to appreciate and admire over the years. As such, this new album will therefore harvest love and respect by any music fan partial to this one-of-a-kind artist.
