Alert the wood nymphs: Tori Amos has a new album coming out
Hark, gentle maidens of the night! Hie thee to the water’s edge and listen close to the siren call of our mystical brethren. Do you hear it? The mad dancing in a whirlygig of ethereal bliss? That’s because they just heard Tori Amos has a new album coming out. It’s like Force Friday for Star Wars nerds, only for people who max out their credit cards in the “New Age” section of the bookstore.
Native Invader, Amos’ 15th studio album and her first since 2014’s Unrepentant Geraldines (still frontrunner for most Tori Amos-sounding album title), is a record with a thematic focus on the natural world, and the singer had some very on-brand comments about it:
The songs on Native Invader are being pushed by the Muses to find different ways of facing unforeseen challenges and in some cases dangerous conflicts. The record looks to Nature and how, through resilience, she heals herself. The songs also wrestle with the question: what is our part in the destruction of our land, as well as ourselves, and in our relationships with each other?
In life there can be the shock of unexpected fires, floods, earthquakes, or any cataclysmic ravager—both on the inside and outside of our minds. Sonically and visually, I wanted to look at how Nature creates with her opposing forces, becoming the ultimate regenerator through her cycles of death and re-birth. Time and time again she is able to renew, can we find this renewal for ourselves?
It sounds like those Muses were doing some awfully heavy-duty pushing. “Dammit, Tori, it’s time to look at some cataclysmic ravagers!” At which point, Amos presumably spun in a languid circle, ascending into a star cluster, where she then spun herself some flaxen binoculars from a magical loom. She’s also touring Europe following the album’s release—Native Invader will be released by Decca on September 8.