Tori Amos
Scarlet's Walk
Epic

Concept albums, song cycles, rock operas: not as plentiful today as in, say, the '70s, but still a useful avenue for a music act trying to dodge expectations (Radiohead), gain credibility in the marketplace (Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814), or revive a dead career (Paul Simon, Barry Manilow). Concept albums are tricky; the music might be hemmed in and held down by the story, or the artist may strain to be epic when the story doesn't earn it, or possibly the story is too thin, the concept too obscure. "Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn't go anywhere," said John Lennon of the Beatles' seminal Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "[But] it works 'cause we said it worked." Not every concept album is a Beatles album; some have to succeed on the merits of the idea. The misses tend to outweigh the hits. You have your Tommy and The Wall, sure. But for every one of those, you have a handful of Ogden's Nut Gone Flakes. You have Joe's Garage. And Iron Man: A Musical.

Tori Amos calls her newest release, Scarlet's Walk, a "sonic novel." Her first release for Epic, and her sixth album since Little Earthquakes in 1992, it follows the title character on a journey through all the states of the union. (Scarlet is, of course, a stand-in for Amos, who visited all 50 states in preparation for this album.) Along the way, "Scarlet" falls in with a variety of men — from a Messiah figure in Delaware to a Latino revolutionary in Texas — but this is not an album about finding love, and none of the men lasts more than a song. (They're like Bond girls in miniature.) This album's loftier goal is to locate one's "moral compass" in a country that seems to have none.

It's a hell of a risk to take on your first album for a new label, but, musically, it pays off. It's been touch-and-go since the 1994 release of Under the Pink, due largely to inconsistent production, ponderous and self-conscious arrangements and a penchant for lyrics that are enigmatic at best and, at worst, a collection of empty surrealist koans. The first six tracks of Scarlet's Walk are gorgeous — the music is lush and adventurous, but not at the expense of melody (see Boys for Pele). "A sorta fairytale" is particularly good — a spare, jazzy opening drum lick, reminiscent of Pink's "Past the Mission," drives the tale of a doomed relationship on the Los Angeles leg of her journey. The two best songs come later in the journey; "Taxi Ride", concerning the death of a friend in Baton Rouge, kicks in with a similarly effortless drum beat, and Amos informs us that "even a glamorous bitch can be in need." The best track on the album, and one of her best songs, period, is "your cloud," a profoundly sad meditation on separation, whose lyric abstractions are, in the context of the music, an asset. She sings, "If the rain has to separate from itself does it say, 'Pick out your cloud?'" Amos is in great voice, as usual, but she finds new phrasing and nuances on Scarlet's Walk.

But Amos begins to stumble on "wampum prayer." It follows the first six beautiful tracks, and it's only 44 seconds long, but it's an unwelcome reminder that this album is a journey and it has a story. This is where Scarlet's Walk falters: Its concept is unfathomable. There is no way to determine who this Scarlet is, why the journey is important to her, or what, if anything, she's gotten out of a trip around America. Amos herself doesn't seem to know much about Scarlet. "[She] is me sometimes, she's a drop of blood sometimes, she's the land sometimes." Huh? The Who's Tommy may be a bit facile 30-odd years later, but at least the title character is an identifiable person with a point of view.

The album exceeds 70 minutes. That's too long, but, again, it's a concept album. Amos is straining for the epic here, but too much of the album's second half is uninspired, like "wampum prayer," or unnecessary, like "I can't see New York," a song heavy with Sept. 11 referencing that wears out its welcome before the end of verse one. By track 17, you may begin to appreciate the half-hour discs of Weezer, who know when to quit.

Scarlet's Walk also suffers from a lack of place. That's a bad sign for an album that wants to take you on a tour of America. Amos includes the map of the journey Scarlet takes in the liner notes, divided into color-coded trails connected to one another. "Taxi Ride" runs a forest-green course from Chicago to New Orleans. The next song runs a pink trail from New Orleans to Hawaii to Miami. But the music runs only one course — into Amosville, USA, Population: one. Amos could have written the songs sitting in her bedroom looking at a map of the United States in an atlas and the result would be the same. There is no regional instrumentation here, no attempt to define a location by playing its music. One of the best popular music concept albums about America came out last year — Bob Dylan's Love and Theft. Dylan led us through the history of American music and, by extension, through America. Amos isn't nearly as conversant with musical history as Dylan. As a result, Scarlet's Walk is myopic when it wants to be cinematic.

The idea is novel, but Scarlet's Walk lacks the specifics of conflict and character that might make a "sonic novel." Pare away the concept-driven filler and it's a hell of a Tori Amos album — a return to form after a period of inconsistency and dubious experimentation. This is her best album since Under the Pink. That's the real story here.

— Christopher Hickman (hickatz at mindspring dot com)