Tori Amos often has great ideas of conceptual albums, from what I gather. I don’t know her so well, but it’s not often you’ll feel that the songs on one of her albums are just scraped together with no theme or uniting feel.

This one fits in the “thematic” universe, as we follow Scarlet (Tori’s alter ego) in her roadtrip across every state of the USA. Lots of references to the road, but also to the more metaphorical feeling of going forward but without a real purpose.

I am not as much as a Tori fan as I know some people are. I often don’t “get” her lyrics, I don’t know, maybe I’m not profound enough! Anyway, I liked that album quite a lot, but Tori still isn’t one of my favorites. The song “Carbon”, though, is really poignant and haunting.

A road trip across America, this album is Tori at her best and most brilliant.