Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Arts

Audio files

By BRIAN ORLOFF
Published March 20, 2005

TORI AMOS, THE BEEKEEPER (EPIC) Tori Amos talks of her latest opus, an 80-minute, 19-track album, as a sonic cross-pollination, capturing the marriage of her famous piano with vintage organs. The Beekeeper continues to push Amos' metaphoric work into mythical, captivating places pierced by rolling piano lines, lush layers of vocal harmonies and, especially compelling here, gospel choirs that anchor her airy soprano with an earthiness, and, in passages, outright funkiness.

Amos, who performs at Ruth Eckerd Hall on April 1, remains a singular, and necessary, voice in today's pop music landscape: She's empowering and invariably uses her music to make provocative statements informed by allegory and literature. Although The Beekeeper explores relationships - and it feels universal in scope - that doesn't mean things are always too heavy. Hoochie Woman, with its funk-tastic groove, seems like Amos is in on the joke; the silky Sweet the Sting might inspire some hip-shaking.

Barons of Suburbia swoops in with a serpentine chorus which recedes into to a piano-pounding catharsis; Goodbye Pisces equates a breakup with the end of the Piscean Era, its jangly piano tangling with an understated, but devastating guitar riff. Elsewhere, songs venture into mortality including the title track - swathed in a cocoon of warm electronics - and the banjo-flecked Jamaica Inn.

Given its considerable length, and Amos' obtuse, if not fascinating, lyrics, The Beekeeper takes some work to digest. And a handful of uninspired tracks, like Ireland with its '50s bebop feel and lyrics befitting a car commercial, don't help. But those are only minor distractions from Amos' sweet vision. A-

- BRIAN ORLOFF, Times correspondent

[Last modified March 17, 2005, 09:53:04]