The Beekeeper

With an impressive back catalogue from 1992's exceptional debut 'Little Earthquakes', 1998's harrowing 'From The Choirgirl Hotel' and 2002's 'Scarlet's Walk', a sonic novel based upon a road trip across the whole of America, one comes to expect alot from Tori Amos.
Gladly she doesn't let us down with her latest offering, The Beekeeper.
With 19 tracks on offer, it may appear a daunting, epic album, but Tori cleverly divides the tracks into several 'gardens', all with different themes , which helps to make the track listing more digestible. Infact the garden theme of the album seems very apt, as every single track florishes and feels nurtured to perfection.
The melodies of the songs seem to be very strong indeed, and the themes adressed are as intelligent and poignant as ever, with issues of religion, betrayal, terrorism and women's role in society all being tackled with sensitivity and competance. All 19 tracks, from the rich, poetic drama of Parasol to the tear inducing Toast are beautifully composed and artistic, yet still accessible.
Tori varies her style alot on this album, from the sexy, Southern swagger of Sweet The Sting and the gospel tinged Witness, to the stark and haunting Original Sinsuality.
Other tracks of note include the atmospheric title track, addressing the looming death of a loved one, backed by soft electronica reminiscent of Suede from 1999's To Venus and Back, Mary's Of The Sea, a theatrical affair dealing with themes of the Magdalene and Christianity at dramatic pace becoming slowed down to an echoey contemplative chorus. Baron's Of Suburbia is another pacey track, climaxing in a chanting and piano score which have the makings of an unbelievable live experience.
The Power Of Orange Knickers features Damien Rice on accompanying vocals, creating a beautifully layered momentum similar to Past The Misson on 1994's Under The Pink. Other stand outs include the political General Joy and Mother Revolution and the beautiful Ribbons Undone.
The lyrics on the album are as poetic and intriguing as ever, and Tori's voice seems to get better with age, posessing beautiful richness on all 19 tracks.
The Beekeeper is a complete and lush album, with each song standing its own in an impressive discography, all with the potential to become classics. This record clearly shows that, 13 years on from her debut, Tori Amos still has plenty to say, and is still leading the way for contemporary alternative pop music. Intelligent, poignant and sexy, this record is a must buy that deserves alot of attention!

Tori Amos was one of the most successful and significant singer-songwriters of the 1990s, and perhaps the finest female singer-songwriter since Joni Mitchell. However, her early albums, which were semi-confessional, bloodletting, emotional epics of intense drama have tended to cast her eternally as angst-ridden or fiery. Which makes subtle works like 2002's Scarlet's Walk and 2005's The Beekeeper appear less mesmeric at first, and also tends to see them wrongfully maligned.

Scarlet's Walk is perhaps Amos' songwriting masterpiece, a work of insight and spot-on poetry evoking American history and politics, with a smooth, '70s road-trip style soundtrack to match. The Beekeeper is its more sensual, sexy, and diverse sister, finding Amos in a slower, groovier mood than ever before. The histrionics and dark, semi-gothic epics are replaced in favour of songs positively dripping in sensuality and subtlety.

Melodically, it is one of Amos' strongest works, especially on such minor verse/major chorus delights as "Parasol," the soft, girlish "Martha's Foolish Ginger," and the delicately feminine "Jamaica Inn." A hallmark of this album is soft, tinkly piano melodies, intricately-woven high-pitched backing vocals, and more conventional song structures than before. Compared to her previous records, the production style - with vocals upfront, and subtle arrangements - is inviting but not necessarily as adventurous; still, when Tori Amos does "conventional," it's not quite conventional like other artists.

Elsewhere, she indulges a more diverse side than Scarlet's Walk displayed. "Sweet the Sting" is sexy Latin funk a la Santana, the "sha-na-na" oddity of "Ireland" has a strange reggae undercurrent, "Witness" is a cascading homage to '70s R&B/neo-funk with a surprising piano break, and "Mother Revolution" retains a jazzy rhythm without introducing traditionally jazz instruments. Only the urgently beautiful "Marys of the Sea" and the fierce if strained "Barons of Suburbia" recall her mid-'90s 'freakouts,' but there are two solo piano beauties as well - the closing "Toast," an ode to her recently-departed brother, and the show-stopping "Original Sinsuality," despite its pun-laden lyrics a spellbinding gem featuring one of her career-best codas.

Vocally, Amos is not in her ultimate best form but still manages well with the material. At times, her high-end vocal range sounds a little forced, but these songs have a soft femininity to which the vocal style suits. Amos herself described the album, which is wildly varied thematically (although she attempted to construct a concept based around the Gnostic gospels that restored Mary Magdalene), as "a perfume that wraps around you," and sonically that is very true.

The Beekeeper has been dismissed by many as too soft, too long, and not cohesive enough. True, some editing could have been advisable but this is a new subtle perspective to Amos' work and a welcome addition to her canon, which of course will be ever-growing in the years to come. It's not quite as intricate or complex as before, and the lyrics are far from her best, but it's by no means a poor or average album and even when Amos veers close to the mainstream, there's enough uniqueness and originality to remind us that she is in fact a world-class songwriter and a modern-day treasure.

I feel compelled to write a review of this album. I am a huge fan of Tori Amos, and when I bought this album I thought 'what the hell have you done, Tori?'. In short, i detested it, and only through forcing myself to listen to it literally non-stop after buying it, did I grow to realise how beautiful some of the album actually is.

Ireland and Cars and Guitars are unforgivable, and I still can't listen to them all the way through, accepting that there are now two Tori songs that I dislike! However, Mother Revolution, Original Sinsuality, The Power Of Orange Knickers and Marys Of The Sea make up for these duds, and there really is a lot here to sift through and love. The main problem here is the quantity of what she has recorded. If it were cut by about five songs, it really could have been up there with Pele and Choirgirl as the best of her career. Sadly, it's not, but it's a good album that shows she still has huge originality and skill.