Night Of Hunters

Tori Amos is used to surprising the audience

The independent and unexpected Toru Amos always tries to make her next album feature something that has never been heard on the previous records. This is why in over twenty years of hard work on stage and in studio, the singer has repeatedly changed her style dramatically, but there has always been something there that you are not going to find on anyone’s records. Amos’ brand new record, a large-scale piece called Night Of Hunters, as it was expected, offers a wide range of exciting music findings and keeps big surprises for even the best prepared listeners. The present CD is strongly different from Tori’s recent efforts because it was recorded with the use of only acoustic instruments. The only thing intact was the fundamental application of piano backed by strings and woodwinds. The record was released through a German label specializing in classic music, Tori Amos’ old and, probably, strongest affection.

Deep ideas and powerful emotions of Night Of Hunters

To those who found Amos’ recent works interesting, the first contact with Night Of Hunters may be an ordeal. The album lasts more than seventy minutes and has no signs of a pop-music product whatsoever. You are not supposed to perceive fully and thoroughly right away, either. Shattering Sea, the album’s opener, despite the seeming harmony and fragrance of music, chills with unrest. The sensation of pending doom grows stronger on two other tracks slotted in the first half of the record, Fearlessness, and Battle Of Tress, with the instruments fighting each other as they are reluctant to follow a common melody. This heavy atmosphere is predetermined by the story that goes through the whole track-list of Night Of Hunters. It tells us about a woman who anticipates a painful ending to relationships with a man she once loved. She seems able to find inner powers to stand this strike of fate, but on the other hand she has no idea what lies ahead. In the second half of the album songs Your Ghost, anf Edge Of The Moon remind us that Tori’s first steps down the path of music lay in spiritual traditions she was introduced to by her father. There is no chance to forget the fascinating conclusion of the record, First, we enjoy the amazing instrumental Seven Sisters, followed by the final Carry that sends shivers down one’s spine.

An album for those who value serious music

Night Of Hunters has only one disputable feature and that is the participation of Tori Amos’ daughter, Tash. Possibly, the experiments of this kind that have already been conducted on several occasions encouraged both the singer and her child, and the girl’s voice was supposed to be taken for grated on the new album, but it was not. In as serious an album as this one, where not only the words, but even the wayof uttering them play essential role, a child’s singing would seem like a hazardous substance to a healthy organism. There is nothing else on Amos’ fresh album that is not worth praiseful epithets. Colorful orchestral arrangements and atmosphere of classic music create a sensation of being a witness to something big and important. The singer had to complete a very tough mission; she had to turn a more than seventy-minute collection of tracks into a cohesive piece without needless or boring parts. Maybe, in the beginning, Night Of Hunters will be perceived as something haphazard and awkward; but like any big and serious work, this album will disclose all this power to only most patient and thoughtful fans of true art.