- Give
- Welcome To England
- Strong Black Vine
- Flavor
- Not Dying Today
- Maybe California
- Curtain Call
- Fire To Your Plain
- Police Me
- That Guy
- Abnormally Attracted To Sin
- 500 Miles
- Mary Jane
- Starling
- Fast Horse
- Ophelia
- Lady In Blue
The Alchemy of Desire
With Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Tori Amos once again descends into the labyrinth of identity, faith, and sensuality - torch in hand, her own mythic priestess of defiance. The album is a grand, sprawling incantation: lush, shadowed, and unafraid to blur the lines between the divine and the profane. It feels less like a collection of songs and more like a series of ritual rooms, each lit by flickering candlelight and the scent of rebellion.
Amos has always wielded language like a blade, slicing through illusions of purity and propriety, and here she sharpens that edge into something almost ceremonial. Abnormally Attracted to Sin is her exploration of power - spiritual, sexual, emotional - and how they intertwine in the soul’s architecture. The title itself suggests both confession and celebration: sin not as corruption, but as catalyst, as the trembling spark that animates a full, unapologetic life.
Musically, the album glows with a kind of decadent restraint. It’s neither as baroque as her early work nor as minimal as her later meditations; instead, it sits in a strange, seductive middle ground. Synths shimmer like velvet over slow-burning rhythms, while Amos’ piano and voice - those twin conduits of ecstasy and pain - carry the listener through corridors of temptation and revelation.
What makes Abnormally Attracted to Sin so compelling is its maturity. Amos no longer seeks to shock; she seeks to understand. Desire here is not the enemy of grace - it’s its expression. Faith is not submission - it’s choice. The sacred and the sensual are mirrors of each other, and Tori, ever the mystic provocateur, stands between them, unblinking.
In the end, this album feels like communion at midnight: a ceremony for those who’ve questioned everything, who’ve dared to love, to doubt, to burn. Tori Amos doesn’t ask for redemption here - she redefines it. Abnormally Attracted to Sin is her gospel of self-possession, her hymn to the holy chaos of being alive.
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My personal view:
After the somewhat messy American Doll Posse, this is a great return to form, with plenty of variety in styles. No underlying theme here - to quote the artist: "it is not a concept album. It is a red-headed woman singing songs." And I'm glad to say that there are lots of great songs here, such as Give, Welcome To England, Not Dying Today, Fire To Your Plain, Police Me, Abnormally Attracted To Sin, Mary Jane, Starling, Ophelia, Lady In Blue, and especially Maybe California.