Review: Tori Amos’s Ocean to Ocean Treads Too Closely to Familiar Waters

At her best, Tori Amos’s unbridled and often brutal confessionals can churn the bile in your stomach with their visceral depictions of suppressed trauma. Even, in the past, when the singer-songwriter’s lyrics veered toward surreal territory and, at times, apparent randomness, like obscure references to the works of her friend Neil Gaiman or Victorian novelist Sir Henry Rider Haggard, she could make you feel things.

Amos’s first album in four years, Ocean to Ocean, finds her grappling with the death of her mother, searching for her in the clouds on “Flowers Burn to Gold” and communing with her spirit on “Speaking with Trees.” But while Amos poignantly conveys her loss—and, crucially, her subsequent lostness—the sentimentality of her lyrics ventures perilously close to schmaltz. Lines like “She said, ‘I am hurt’/Love is lost and broken,” when couched with more of the same, feel less unvarnished or straightforward than rudimentary.

When Amos takes on politics on “Ocean to Ocean,” she similarly paints in broad strokes, with idealistic ponderings about “needless killings” and “those who only give a goddamn for the profit that they’re making.” The critiques of religion and society of Amos’s early albums, like Little Earthquakes, were filtered through the lens of her own suffering, but in recent years her socio-political observations have felt less personal and, thus, less authoritative.

On the album’s closing track, “Birthday Baby,” Amos doles out some maternal advice that’s far more resonant due to its specificity and connection to the singer’s own history: “Bring those killer heels with you/Sometimes in life a girl must tango alone/With a sultry night and a steady lamppost.” Likewise, on “Spies,” she spins her daughter’s fear of bats into a sweet and wonder-filled tribute to the often-vilified creatures of the night, likening them to caped crusaders.

Though “Spies” lacks a proper vocal hook—it consists of just the half-spoken title—it features one of the more thrilling arrangements on Ocean to Ocean, with synths, brass, and, of course, piano backed by a driving bassline. Amos’s signature keys, however, are less prominent here than on any of her other albums, buried beneath a tasteful assemblage of guitars and other conventional pop-rock elements.

Only “Flowers to Burn Gold,” in fact, strips its arrangement down to simply piano and vocals. “Devil’s Bane,” which skewers some malevolent patriarch or charlatan, opens with an atmospheric, almost Björkian flourish but quickly pivots toward Amos’s preferred midtempo gait. Conversely, “Swim to New York State” starts off like a ’70s soft-rock ballad before building up a whirling head of steam accompanied by orchestral strings that nod to the grandeur of Under the Pink’s “Yes, Anastasia.”

“I guess you go too far when pianos try to be guitars,” Amos proclaimed on “Northern Lad,” a track from 1998’s dazzlingly eclectic From the Choirgirl Hotel. With Ocean to Ocean, it seems as if Amos has all but given up on pushing the limits of her instrument. Which would be more forgivable if the songs themselves didn’t play it quite so safely.