This Deluxe version of "Abnormally Attracted To Sin" will include a bonus fan DVD that include 17 visualettes (special music videos) for songs on the album.

2009-06-30 -- 3/5:: From artist to entertainer
As much as she provides a certain feminine power rarely heard, Amos's albums have progressively been giving off a distinct artist-absorbed-in-own-eccentricities lure, and while no one can accuse the once gifted piano soloist of consciously underachieving (her lengthy discs continue to come packed with pockets of aforementioned power) her continued ventures into averagely produced electronica have only served to render the opposite effect of boxing the artist in.

2009-06-29 -- 5/5:: Casting pearls to the swine ...
The world is not cut out for such music anymore, clearly. I can hear for myself, and I have not been this impressed with the music on any album of this kind, written by anyone since Joni Mitchell around the time of Hejira and Shadows & Light. I am dying to give this one a real, serious objective review, and dying to talk about the music. But, among such reviews, and clearly among such an audience, what I might do best is to make clear to all readers that what has been written here about this album ... "An 80s synth album" ... "the worst one" ... "she's lost it" ... this is absolute, fervently tone-deaf garbage. The fact that a large number of the reviews echo such sentiment? Well ... "Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not so sure about the former." -Einstein. I'm not quite sure what many expect to hear when they purchase such an album, but I must advise against listening to those who fawn over "1990s Tori Amos" as though they've never heard a piano in their lives before and then write about this album after a clearly very shallow listen.

Anyway, let me say something about the sound. I was sold from the 30-second long 'implied' diminished chord that opens this album. It takes its time, the first voice entering separately and shifting chromatically. In plain English, this is a very unstable chord which is "meant" (in common practice) to be used only as a transitional chord that sets up a cadence, or an ending of a musical phrase. Here, the shifting voice leads right into the diminished chord; and the timing is JUST RIGHT.

Writing beautiful, inventive music is much more than a matter of taking dissonance out of context though - and being generally a lover of Tori Amos for less-than-purely-compositional reasons, I remained a little bit cynical until 5 more seconds had passed, and her voice had entered unexpectedly, unprepared by the music, and what appeared to be a contrasting, run o' the mill 3-2-1 (Mi-Ré-Do) motive revealed itself to resolve to that same diminished sonority. Maybe such sounds are too unpleasant for common ears. I often say that you can play many Tori Amos piano parts with one hand, on account of her manner of syncopation; in Ophelia, she agrees with me and spins out some beautiful polyphony with both hands fully engaged. The opening is one of my very favorite, and certainly the most difficult piano passage I've ever heard her write - as an apparently privileged one who can hear such things, I loved to hear that one best. "I can play damn well, when I want to" ... and not when the swine want her to. Brilliant! Seeing these reviews, I feel no need to be shy about being completely (and justifiably) pretentious when it comes to music.

I could go through all of the songs and pick them apart, and with 3/4 of them the same kinds of games and surprises turn up more than once. And even the ones I like least (say, 500 Miles & Starling) which sound the most like "the usual rock songs", still might have a trick or two waiting up their sleeves. Perhaps it's best to say that you should listen to this being open to how the musical content, the harmony and the phrasing plays an ongoing game with your expectations. If someone is used to "Tori songs" and really knows them well, they should expect to hear the same, but with more spice in certain places than before. If someone is used to the textbook consonance and easy-to-understand cheap harmony of most rock songs - though if they've heard Gold Dust or Hotel, for example, they'd know better - to them I say be patient and listen with an open mind, and you might find a greater, deeper reward than you expected to find.

Let me be frank and say that the fifth star is phoned in here, in reaction to all the cheapening reviews of others. What would make me wholeheartedly add the fifth (and maybe even fall to my knees ... not something that happens every day to a proud musician) is if Tori were to finally begin to work with other musicians of her own caliber, rather than her current entourage. I concede to the lesser reviews one thing: this album is unnecessarily produced. There is no reason for these electronic 'enhancements' (really?) to be here. They do nothing good which couldn't have been done better through natural means, and they add a lot of noise, and a lot of useless reverberation that just subtracts from the natural tone-color of one of the most beautiful and nuanced expressive voices in the world. The 'mystical' sounds that appear on Give would have sounded brilliant as harmonics played by that string ensemble who appear in Maybe California playing a whole bunch of quarter notes, one after the other. I wasn't surprised to find that the string section was arranged by someone else. Each and every 'someone else' present in the music here have, at best, very little to add. Tori went through the effort, and I can hear this, to address many details herself. But at the end of the day, an ensemble of musicians is still an ensemble. Chamberlain manages to do little more than count the measures and cadences without being distracted by Tori's phrasing. Evans plays what she's written with some cheap decoration (a few little slides and badly placed neighbor tones here and there) that sounds best left in the background. And Jasmine might as well tape his guitar parts with Finale or a similar music notation/MIDI software. Excessive electronic meddling to make up for extremely economical guitar playing, in terms of both energy and inventiveness. Nice, clever boy. You're feeling the sarcasm, I hope.

But let me say, if anything the band and engineers only go to show that there really is only ONE Tori Amos ... if only there were a few good musicians to join her, as Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius and a few others joined Joni Mitchell in the 1970s & 80s, and if she continues to write with these priorities ... perhaps one of the most brilliant works of Art of this century might turn up, somewhere soon! She truly surprised me, in the best way, and the only thing better is the potential.



P.S. The pictures are gorgeous. Especially the one with the backless dress. :)

2009-06-28 -- 4/5:: Tori's attraction to sin.
It's fresh, musically textural and as always with tori's music this body of work gives you something to think about. There are elements in her music everyone can identify with. I hear Zepplin & King Crimmson over tones that are done with only the sort of style that Tori can pull off.

2009-06-23 -- 2/5:: A bit disappointing...
I am a long time Tori Amos fan and think she is extremetly talented. This album, however, is not her best work. I have given it a fair shot and listened to it several times and almost all of the songs are quite forgettable. I keep listening to it, waiting for to start singing along, or think, "Oh yeah, this is a really good song," but it is not happening. Compared to other new releases, this album is decent, but compared to Tori Amos' previous albums, this pales in comparison. I wish I could verbalize exactly what it is that I think it's lacking, but it's difficult. It's just not up to the standards that Tori has set for herself. It's just kind of blah the whole way through. I was slow to warm up to her last album, but it did eventually. This one still has me bored, unfortunately.

2009-06-22 -- 4/5:: Tori is always good, better than most..
Tori is always good, better than most. To give her under five stars would be insulting. Most musicians will never be or have ever been actual singer/songwriters. The only reason she would get a low rating is because people are rating her against herself and past work.
I'm sorry but I did give her 4 stars instead of five for Abnormally Attracted to Sin. I thought it was excellent but I'm not in love with it like I have been with pretty much all her records. I still really like it, and a few song I would marry but not all of them.
I still think that her creativity, beautiful compositions, and complex lyrics driven with emotional truth and spiritual contemplation make her far better than most of the musicians around. She is always worth spending some money on, but just for the few us who have all of her other priceless previous works, you may be slightly... and I stress, "Slightly", disappointed. But buy it anyway! it Tori Amos!.. and you know she's a sure thing:)