Although Scarlet's Walk is a role-playing concept album, it is also standard Tori fare that simmers with honeyed poetics, enigmatic lyrics, layered sensuality and quiet strength.
This is one album fans will want to buy instead of simply downloading. Each CD is a "key" to Scarlet's Web, an exclusive section of Amos's official Web site that features continuously updated in-depth travelogues, pictures, behind the scenes videos and additional songs.
Amos produced Scarlet's Walk in her Cornwall, England, home with longtime partner-in-crime Matt Chamberlain on drums and fresh addition Jon Evans on bass.
While Amos' recent releases From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back echoed with the trance-like techno of a full band, Scarlet's Walk returns to the toned-down elegance of earlier works Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink.
Although several tracks feature lead guitar, Amos' signature piano ubiquitously moans under the weight of this accomplished musician. Amos graces each track with crystalline tinkerings and velvety vocals that piano songstress-in-training Vanessa Carlton can only dream of creating.
First single "A Sorta Fairytale" is an alternately sunny and incisive love song with an enticing bridge and an addictive chorus. The video, which flows with Salvador Dalí-esque absurdity, embodies all that is beautiful and twisted in the realm of the fairies. Although singles rarely stand out as albums' finest tracks, "A Sorta Fairytale" glows its way to the top.
Other preeminent tunes include the stately porn star narrative "Amber Waves," the lusciously buoyant "Taxi Ride" and the tear-stained "I Can't See New York."
Amos does not simply cover the nation; she also covers a spectrum of emotions. She throbs with anger in the Native American influenced "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas," with sass in the cabaret-like "Wednesday," and with piety in the righteous, a cappella "Wampum Prayer."
For being an America-centric album, it's surprising that Scarlet's Walk features only one obliquely political track. Title track "Scarlet's Walk" asks, "What did you plan to do with all your freedom?" and, "What do you plan to do with all your stories?"
Amos indirectly answers both questions in Scarlet's Walk. She uses her freedom to gather stories, gather herself, and tell these tales with the wisdom and profundity of a woman who has sung the song, talked the talk and walked the walk.
Walk on, Tori Amos.
