CD reviews: Tori Amos; Jarvis Cocker
May 24, 2009 at 3:35AM
Tori Amos, "Abnormally Attracted to Sin" (Universal Republic)
Amos is still the reigning muse for mystic goth girls. Her 11th CD, a 17-song collection, strikes a balance between Victorian-inspired decadence, mythical pathos and arch camp. For all her theatrics, Amos is also the warm and wise sister/goddess, passing on hard-learned advice.
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin" is rife with idiosyncrasies, but when the record hits the sweet slithery spot, as on the title track, the album's themes of temptation -- whether that be to fundamental religion, self-destruction or self-medicating vices -- simmer together with wit and heart. It's a relief to hear something bright and muscular. "Not Dying Today" is a survivor's song, with the secondhand wisdom that music and good friends can ward off death, at least temporarily.
Amos performs Aug. 5 at the State Theatre in Minneapolis.
MARGARET WAPPLER,
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Jarvis Cocker, "Further Complications" (Rough Trade)
For his second solo album, the former Pulp frontman and trenchant Britpop wit has grown a beard and cranked up the midlife-crisis rock. Now 45, the avuncular intellectual of the mid-'90s scene that also spawned Oasis and Blur has turned to a producer of that era -- Steve Albini, of Nirvana and Pixies renown -- to give "Further Complications" a rugged, at times raucous, full-band, live-in-the-studio feel. Some trademark bon mots do appear. "I met her in a museum of paleontology; I make no bones about it," Cocker sings in the weary come-on "Leftovers." And he kicks up a properly cacophonous storm of self-loathing in "Caucasian Blues."
But too often "Complications" trades in Cocker's well-spoken distinctiveness for a bar-band squall that's a tad on the generic side. It also suffers from particularly poor song sequencing, starting off with the nondescript "Angela" and saving more memorable songs, such as the winning weather metaphor "Slush" and the attractively sleazy "You're in My Eyes (Discosong)" for dead last.
DAN DELUCA,
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
