Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The news that Tori Amos had hit a sort of wall in her music must have by-passed everyone who has listened to her music over the last couple of years and last few albums. Taking time to listen to anything she has produced in that time period can only lead to the scratching of heads and slight bewilderment at the thought. For in Unrepentant Geraldines Ms. Amos has produced yet again arguably one of the finest albums you will hear all year.
The reflection of life is always noticeable when you reach certain milestones in your life, the loss of much admired grandparent, your first creative piece of work to be accepted as true piece of art, turning 21, 40 or even 50, can cause the strong urge to debate with yourself the true nature of your voyage through life. It may just manifest itself in the act of the so called mid-life crisis, the appreciation of fast cars or unexpected impulse to chuck it all away and live a life of crazed unrestrained extravagance or, in the case of an artist who captures the raw emotion which graced the female poets such Sylvia Plath, the original respective confessional poetry played alongside the beating heart of a highly polished piano becomes an ever greater ally and one in which fills the air with a half century re-blossoming.
Unrepentant Geraldines is Tori Amos’ 14th studio album and it just as stunning as any of the other works that she has put together. There is no shame in that, for an artist should always give their best, not so that they are cheating the public, but so they don’t cheat themselves and nobody can ever surely ever accuse Ms. Amos of ever doing either.
The album can also be seen as being a very back to basics affair, the huge expanse of many artists and musicians being a part of her life left, for now at least, at a truck stop down the road. This is just a woman, alongside her daughter on the superb track Promise, and her husband Mark Hawley mixing and programming the album, alone with her thoughts and musings, perhaps even an odd demon or two whispering down her ear in respect to how woman are treated differently when they reach a certain age. A woman who in tracks such as Trouble’s Lament, Invisible Boy and the haunting Wild Way can be heard to tackle the point of age and time and in some cases the unreasonableness of it all and yet marvelling at the world around her in such a way that you know, no matter that its 20 plus years since her debut solo album, she still finds life so endlessly fascinating.
With 16 Shades of Blue, the excellence of Giant’s Rolling Pin and the title track of the album all coming across as strong feminist statements and when coupled with the likes of Wild Way and Trouble’s Lament, Unrepentant Geraldines is an album which highlights that age is a number, that time perhaps is not an enemy in which to conquer but the steady beat between the tick and the tock is one in which inspiration can strike and give way to something incredible.
Ian D. Hall