From The Choirgirl Hotel Altoona PA

From The Choirgirl Hotel

Tori Amos

Atlantic Records, 1998

REVIEW BY: Sean McCarthy

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/19/1998

Tori Amos once said that pain was something that our generationcherished so much that we would hunt down and kill anyone who triedto take that pain away from us. After all, pain is Tori Amos'smuse.

The horror and the suffering she suffered after being raped cameout on Little Earthquakes. That groundbreaking album and Under The Pink rang with Amos's virtuosic piano skills aswell as her stark lyrics. Then...something happened - she broke upwith her longtime boyfriend. The result was Boys For Pele, an ambitious album as well as a hugedeparture from those two albums. As she added more musicalornamentation (harpsichord) her lyrics became more abstract.

Bad news for those who bitched about the results of Amos's lastventure. The accomplishments she made on Boys For Pele are taken to a new level for her new album, from the choirgirl hotel. It's more dance-oriented, it'smore accessible than either Boys For Pele or Under The Pink and it's her most rockin' album to date.

This time, the pain that Amos is reeling from stems from hermiscarriage that she suffered after the tour for Boys For Pele was completed. She addresses this directly inthe powerful opener, "Spark". "She's convinced she could hold backa glacier/but she couldn't keep baby alive," Amos sings in a voicethat can still feel like someone has injected ice water in yourspine.