Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin Review

Posted by Tom Santoro on 05.22.2009

The tormented 90s piano chanteuse is back with her 10th studio album tackling more weighty issues. The album explores her tendencies to give in to temptation (or simply make bad choices). Is it any good?

TRACK LISTING:

1. GIVE
2. WELCOME TO ENGLAND
3. STRONG BLACK VINE
4. FLAVOR
5. NOT DYING TODAY
6. MAYBE CALIFORNIA
7. CURTAIN CALL
8. FIRE TO YOUR PLAIN
9. POLICE ME
10. THAT GUY
11. ABNORMALLY ATTRACTED TO SIN
12. 500 MILES
13. MARY JANE
14. STARLING
15. FAST HORSE
16. OPHELIA
17. LADY IN BLUE





I have always admired Tori Amos as an artist. Her visceral and deeply personal approach to writing has always been interesting. I have respected most of her back catalogue of heavy-handed topics on albums such as Little Earthquakes and Boys for Pele. The dark themes she writes about are always set to equally dark multilayered piano and electronic ambience.

On her tenth studio album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos offers us more thought provoking lyrics. The subjects she chooses to write about are women’s sexual empowerment, women’s inequality in religion and life, suicide and her most favorite subject, religion. She often walks a fine line of good Christian woman and tempting devilish vixen.

The hard thing about Amos’ material is that she usually offers no discernable hooks or melodies that can help you easily soak in her music, instead you have to listen more intently to every provocative word to interpret what is going on in her head. Even though she has no truly catchy song, her openness has scored her legions of loyal fans that worship her as a goddess without a lot of radio airplay or promotion since the early 90s.

Abnormally Attracted to Sin offers some very good tracks, however it is very bloated. There are 17 songs on this 70 minute opus. Because the lyrics are so impactful, I found myself having to listen repeatedly until I could find something to write. I am at about 15 times for those of you who care. I urge you to listen to this album a few times before casting a judgment as there some very good songs that I began to like once I had complete focus (around listen 11). That being said, the album could be pared down to 8 pretty solid tracks and a few descent ideas and be rated much higher.

The better songs on the album are “Give”, “Welcome to England”, “Flavor”, “Maybe California”, “Curtain Call”, “Abnormally Attracted to Sin”, “Fast Horse” and “Fire in Your Plain”. The rest of the songs are ok like “Not Dying Today”, “Lady in Blue”, and “Strong Black Vine”. The songs that I could not connect with are “Mary Jane”, “Starling” and Police Me”. Because of Amos’ personal songwriting, each person will prefer different songs based on their meaning but “Mary Jane” is really bad. First off, how many songs do we need about weed? Second, her version is barely clever. It comes off like a B-Side.

“Give” is a great set up to this album. It has a dark ambience to it starting a slow drum beat and eerie guitar which give way to a sludgy bass line and slow piano chord. The opening line sets the tone for the album’s tendencies towards giving into temptation, ”So, you heard I crossed over the line, do I have regrets, well not yet?”

The dark ambience is also revisited on the title track “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” and “Flavor”. “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” speaks about her troubles with faith. She wants to believe but feels she is broken. The angst in the song should speak to her legion of devoted followers. “Flavor” is full of ambience and trip hop (The open sounds like Massive Attack’s “Teardrops”). The song asks why we must choose any one religion with the first verse, ”Battle of the minds cries/Below cries Above/You must pick a side/Will you choose fear?/Will you choose love?”

The temptations of religion and the guilt one feels about making decisions isn’t the only happy subject Amos tackles. On “Maybe California” she talks about a mother on the brink of suicide. It is the most raw song on the album and evokes some of the same feelings you get listening to Little Earthquakes. It starts off with just her voice and her trusty piano and then is accompanied by some orchestral strings.

“Curtain Call” features Amos’ most provocative lyrical moment. ”By the time you're 25 they will say, "you've gone and blown it". By the time you're 35, I must confide, you will have blown them all.” It is her female sexual empowerment song. It is about how there is so much pressure on a woman to get married and have kids in that 10 year period. The tension of the slow brooding music matches the lyrical content. “Fire to Your Plain” is similarly themed. It has a jumpy bass line and may be the catchiest song on the record. “500 Miles’ is also a likeable song and one of the deeply personal tracks on the record.

“Welcome to England” is about being tempted and wooed to go to England by a guy who lives there. It is a sweet love song reminiscent of “A Sorta Fairytale” in sentiment. It has a great tongue in cheek line in ”You better bring your own sun, sweet girl” a knock on possible the only drawback to living there. “Fast Horse” is another song about weighing ones options. It questions whether this is the right guy for her.

The rest of the songs are ok and are keepers on this very lengthy album. I liked theLed Zeppelin’s “Kasmir” style stringed opening and the bass line, but it got tedious. The Kate Bush style Brian Eno-esque production of “Not Dying Today” also was a good idea that lost me along the way. “Lady in Blue” is a torch song of sorts, I liked its sultry delivery, but it just went on and on.

Of the songs I really could not get into “That Guy” has good lyrical moments but I didn’t like its James Bond movie theme production. “Police Me” is just annoying and sounds like Garbage (both the band and literally trash). There are so many songs on the album that I can’t get to them all.

The 411: Overall, Abnormally Attracted to Sin has moments that reminded me of why I was attracted to Amos in the early 90s, but there are just too many songs. Devoted fans will undoubtedly like this, but if you are a casual admirer you may want to tread carefully.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]