Tori Amos has gone out on a limb by choosing to make an entire album about her “spiritual affair” with the ancient Celtic sun god Lugh of the Long Arm. She has said that the deity contacted her early in the recording of In Times of Dragons, adding that, because the relationship was strictly esoteric, her husband, Mark, was okay with the whole thing.
Quite how her fans will feel about this often confusing undertaking is harder to say, though it represents a distinct improvement on the watered-down LPs Amos has been making since going off the boil as a songwriter across the past decade.
If more compelling than her recent catalogue, this is still a patchy listen that remains firmly earthbound when it wants to soar.
The problem is that In Times of Dragons is trying to be two things at once: a plunge into Irish mysticism and a protest against what Amos has described as a “non-accidental burning down of democracy” in the United States. But she is reluctant to fully commit to either vision. Neither Celtic odyssey nor anti-Trump screed, the album is a perplexing muddle that never coheres into something compelling.
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That said, the sheer fury of the record makes up for its lack of coherence. Amos’s voice is admittedly wispier now than it was in the 1990s: she croons where once she shrieked. Her piano retains its crashing, majestic oomph, however, and the material is among the most focused and propulsive she has written in some time.
In Times of Dragons starts on a high with the harsh opening chords of Shush. The song is a molten onslaught that radiates menace and harks back to the rawness of Amos hits such as Precious Things.
She doesn’t sustain the momentum, however, and neither the opener nor the hazy, droning title track has much to say about the undoing of democracy in the US.
It’s a shame she didn’t go further in that direction rather than try to bond with ancient gods. If Lugh was an influence it was as a distraction that obstructed the more political collection Amos might have recorded had she directed her attention at her fear and loathing of Trump. This is a protest record that needs more protesting.
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Amos has spent much of the past two decades on this side of the Atlantic. She kept a house in Kinsale, in Co Cork, for many years and is now largely based in Cornwall, in southwestern England (while maintaining a residence in Florida).
But this daughter of a Maryland preacher remains rooted in North America. She evokes the tumultuousness of the United States in the 21st century on Provincetown. Named after the New England holiday spot, it pulses with fear for the future of the country (“Will I still be standing ... I want to know ... I want to know”). It is one of the few moments when the politics is stated rather than implied.
The eerie atmosphere intensifies on St Theresa. Here a slow, ominous bassline is paired with lyrics that lament the fickleness of the saints and other divine entities. It’s worryingly soft rock – the guitars have more than a whiff of Chris Rea – but the cascading hook (“You are, you are, you are”) is spiky and sinister.
Amos wrote much of the album after her friend and muse, Neil Gaiman, was accused of sexual assault (which he denies). Amos has recently cut ties with the author; performing in Dublin recently, she expunged his name from the ballad Horses.
None of this is addressed on In Times of Dragons: fans parsing the lyrics for references to the rift will draw a blank. As will students of Celtic folklore, who will find the mythological resonances largely implied and beneath the surface. Add that to a list of disappointments that also includes Amos’s reluctance to meaningfully unpack her trauma as an American watching her country burn from abroad.
Still, she has rarely sounded as angry, and a compelling undertow of righteous wrath runs through the album. Yet too often she seems not to know what to do with that emotion and gets lost in the prog-pop mists. Fiery in places, forgettable in others, In Times of Dragons is an imperfect attempt at recapturing old glories that comes out fighting but never quite lands its punches.
