Unrepentant Geraldines
| Tori Amos
Unrepentant Geraldines
Unrepentant Geraldines is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. The album, available on standard CD/digital download, a limited edition CD+DVD, and two disc vinyl LP, was released in Germany on May 9, 2014 by Mercury Classics and May 13, 2014 in the United States by Mercury Classics/Universal Mercury Classics. Unrepentant Geraldines is Amos' eighth studio album to debut in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Consequence of Sound
Although her lyrics on this album deal heavily in legendary and fictional elements, it also feels like they’re more connected to Amos’ own life than anything she’s written before.
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Paste Magazine
At 14 tracks, Unrepentant Geraldines is overlong and self-indulgent—or at least it seems that way when the second half begins to drag with drab “Selkie” and “Rose Dover.” Even the title track, the most rock-oriented track here, sputters and stalls as it tries to justify its seven-minute length. In these cases the very things that define Amos so thoroughly can turn on her.
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The Guardian
Amos has rarely sounded as vulnerable or exposed as she does on Invisible Boy or the lovely confessional Weatherman. Elsewhere, themes of religion, ageing and sex abound, but are delivered with an ethereal, fantasy feel that recalls the early Kate Bush albums.
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TIME
Tori Amos Creates Her Own Mythology on Unrepentant Geraldines
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Glide Magazine
There’s a depth of feeling in these songs that indicates a return to that fearless songwriter from the 90s. Sure, there are still some definite missteps, but even the weaker tracks are buoyed by the sheer magnitude of Amos’s conviction.
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The Quietus
Unrepentant Geraldines is not a "return to form", . . . .Instead, it's something that's almost more impressive: Amos has, at the age of 50, found an artistic voice that sounds entirely natural and unforced. In many ways, it's the direct opposite of the aesthetic with which she made her name - but in the more important respects, it purges almost everything wrong about her latter-day work.
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PopMatters
Tori Amos returns with a mature and assured collection of tunes that may just be her best in more than a decade.
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Pon DeWay Way Way
Overall these songs are consistently good but what sets the album above her last few is the occasional standout track. As it stands though, Unrepentant Geraldines see’s Tori back on form. I don’t rate it so highly just because it fares so well in comparison to her output in recent years but because it is very good in its own right.
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NBHAP
‘Unrepentant Geraldines’ is a sometimes vivid and ironic and sometimes quiet and retrospective record that surprises the listener with some unexpected turns, even if it is less intense than some of TORI AMOS‘ other works.
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Renowned For Sound
Not only is the album masterful in its lyrical divulgence, something that has become synonymous and fairly expected with any Tori Amos record over the years, but the quality of the singer-songwriters latest work does not falter from her previous studio albums as we learned going through this latest musical treasure chest.
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Slug Mag
After successfully dabbling in a more traditional “classical” world for two albums, it only takes one listen to Amos’ new song cycle—especially her deliciously rousing title track—to know she has returned to her indie-pop/rock musical roots. And what a welcome . . . .
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AllMusic
. . . Unrepentant Geraldines trumps its predecessors by accentuating its polarity; it either seduces with its sweetness or it provokes with its pain, and either extreme is compelling.
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W.L. Swarts Reviews The Universe
Ultimately, though, Unrepentant Geraldines is fine, but it is more exactly what one expects, as opposed to sounding new, fresh, or even different from much of the rest of Tori Amos's musical library.
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Pretty Much Amazing
Unrepentant Geraldines finds Amos exploring what it means to be 50, a woman, a mother and a wife, and she explores those themes through her relationships with visual art. Folks will either freak out over this album or abhor its very existence, and that is exactly what makes it so good. For the first time in 12 years, Tori Amos isn’t trying to please anyone.
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Buffalo News
It’s a weird and beautiful album that rather impossibly makes Amos’ seemingly idiosyncratic concerns seem like universal ones. It’s also a relatively stripped-back affair boasting the strongest melodies Amos has conjured in more than a decade.
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The San Diego Union-Tribune
Tori Amos returns to her pop roots
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The Upcoming
After a few years experimenting with classical projects and her fairy tale musical, Tori Amos’ 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, is a return to her pop/alternative rock roots and, with it, a reinstatement of at least some of what originally sparked her fans’ imaginationtori.
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Financial Times
An irrepressible capacity to over-reach and appease with jaunty piano-led melodies and swooping Kate Bush vocals
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msn
Tori Amos returns to her pop roots.
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Exclaim!
Unrepentant Geraldines is personal and political and refreshingly void of marketing gimmicks or befuddling collaborations. Rather, Tori just comes bearing songs straight from the heart/head/hands/Hell.
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Record Collector
With a smooth, olde worlde sound, appealing melodies and impressionistic imagery, the album, at best, conjures up affecting vignettes and, at worst – Giant’s Rolling Pin, about the NSA/Edward Snowden affair – borders on the twee.
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Slant Magazine
If Unrepentant Geraldines is indeed visual art, it’s more of a polite Norman Rockwell than a vomit-stained Sherman.
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AV Club
Despite the serious subject matter, Unrepentant Geraldines has a lightness—and even creative joy—that makes it a thoroughly enjoyable listen.
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The Boston Globe
Her fans will be glad to hear the muse has finally led Amos back to making the type of carefully crafted but pleasingly quirky pop music that helped make the singer-songwriter’s name in the ’90s . . . .
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The New York Times
Thoughts of maturity and mortality are just one thread on “Unrepentant Geraldines.” Like most of Ms. Amos’s albums, her new one revels in multiplicity and mannerisms; she’s not afraid to warble.
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The Sydney Morning Herald
Trouble, on Tori Amos’ new album, is initially a character. . . . But as has been the case in a career that stretches back to her breakthrough 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes, trouble is a subject that spills through the songs.
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American Songwriter
After embarking on a handful of musical departures, Amos returns to us with a collection of accessible pop songs that play right into her unapologetic stance. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the new set is its lack of pretense – although there are themes that loosely tie the project together, there’s no many-tentacled agenda being sold to us alongside.
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mxdwn.com
Simply put, the album is the simplicity that Tori Amos has always been. Simple ballads, simple arrangements and great storytelling. The Tori Amos newcomer should give this album a second go-around before dismissing its challenging quirks. It is worth it.
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Udiscovermusic
. . . this collection of poetic, chamber-pop harkens back to her 90s confessional style songwriting at the piano, but also features a few surprises . . . and a few risks . . ., which all naturally fall under the purview of a Tori Amos album.
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The Arts Desk
A welcome return to contemporary songwriting from the boundary-pushing artist
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app
The writing here is air-tight (only two songs are longer than five minutes, and both very much earn it), Amos' production is crisp and the melodies are enough to make an old school Amos fan's heart skip a beat or two.
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Acoustic Sounds
It s a vivid and vital album on which Amos once more zeroes in on the writing of brightly melodic, deftly evocative chamber-pop
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Creativedisc.com
Unrepentant Geraldines is described as " an appreciative portrayal of the singer's experiences with visual art ". The album is the result of Amos's reflection on visual works, both photography and painting. Therefore the elements of classical music also become an infusion of this album.
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Music Feeds
While a definite step out of the often narrow ideas of who Tori Amos is, Unrepentant Geraldines also marks a return to the singer-songwriter’s roots as the creator of songs that are ultimately contemporary, personal, innovative, and unmistakably Amos.
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Red OnLine
A five year hiatus had forced forlorn Tori Amos fans to look elsewhere for quirky, ethereal pop music but happily, the prolific singer-songwriter is back with an album packed full of the catchy, fantastical music that made her name.
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Edmonton Journal
Even when Amos is trying to make an important point — about women and ageism — she bogs it down in weird imagery and strident over-exaggerations, then throws away the most important line at the end of a chorus . . . .
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Iowa City Press-Citizen
The piano playing and singing on “Unrepentant Geraldines” are strong and straightforward, with Amos’ sure touch and confessional approach, while the lyrics can be dense and occasionally confounding even as they deal with the rigors of aging and the challenges women of all ages face in a male-dominated, youth-obsessed society.
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eclipsed Rock Magazin
All in all, however, it seems that Tori Amos has found her way back to her homeland after years of sometimes directionless wandering: her music.
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This Fairy Tale Life
She tried some new stuff for a while, which was awesome, but she’s back in her best form which is just her and a piano. “Unrepentant Geraldines,” in my opinion, is her strongest album since “The Beekeeper” in 2005.
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Shock Magazin
The style features and Tori's voice are unchanged, with all the juvenile wildness and rebellion missing, but we wouldn't expect this from a 51-year-old lady. In that mind, I listened to the record, too, of course, very often one after another, because Tori's songs don't give up at first. They rigorously touch the human soul after repeated listening, but then they really penetrate deeper than the bone.
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I Heart Berlin
The new album titled Unrepentant Geraldines has chosen a quite poppy and easily approachable style compared to the previous two that were very classical in sound with orchestras and all that jazz. From all her records this could very well be the least confusing one with friendly melodies and gentle arragements.
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Team ProCreate
Amos' talent for playing dual pianos is only part of what makes her so memorable, and with this album she takes her abilities even further with wonderful results. Although I would not consider this album to be any sort of landmark, it is just as beautiful and relevant as her other bodies of work.
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Prog Archives
All in all a good album that won´t dissapoint old fans, except the ones that expect something as good as the classic albums. .
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Higher Plain Music
In many ways, it feels like the most stripped back and grass-roots album she has made in many years. It borrows from previous albums’ cues but has a natural sound of its own.
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Redit Report
Unrepentant Geraldines is an enchanting album and one of the best that I’ve heard from Tori Amos since her Clinton-era heyday.
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The Pop Break
Amos herself has said that certain works of arts have influenced this album, however, with the exception of referencing the names of the works in the song titles, the visual image is lost. Nothing on the album reminds the listener of a painting; the music is too dynamic. These songs have movement more suited to a film.
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Spectrum Culture
Unrepentant Geraldines is so satisfying because it proves that Amos has not given up on pop music. More moody than confrontational, . . . its storytelling lyrics rooted to an inner truth, its intimacy and connection reliant on her piano and rich voice. . . . Unrepentant Geraldines is a remarkably consistent, strong album.
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Hot Press
First album since 2009 for piano songstress sees her re-finding her muse.
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Desiree Eaglin
Unrepentant Geraldines is served to us in Tori Amos’s signature style with melodic tones and intrinsic lyrics. Once you have given the album a listen, the music will get in your head and you will sing along intrinsically.
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Rolling Stone.de
After confused years, the songwriter surprises with a classic, almost light-footed piano pop album
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Talkhouse
Her voice is miraculous here. Better than ever? Yes. But aside from this-and-that, it is, production-wise, a straightforward affair.
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Forest Punk
Tori emerges from behind the glitter curtain with her most personal record in a decade.
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Metro WEekly
Tori Amos delivers her best album in over a decade with “Unrepentant Geraldines”
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Amoeba Music
Combining her newfound flair for neoclassical arrangement and more mature lyrical explorations with enough of the piss ‘n’ vinegar that made Amos a hit to begin with, Unrepentant Geraldines is a triumphant return.
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Adrian Denning
It doesn't drag, the quieter, reflective songs are followed by quirkier tunes, or performances musically embellished with other instrumentation. It's another sign that, album title apart actually, that Tori's 14th album is a keeper. One of those records that takes a good three or four listens and then suddenly reveals itself as a minor masterpiece quite unexpectedly.
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laut.de
On her 14th studio album the piano virtuoso looks back with the incomparable voice. Less opulence, more depth. Instead of dueling with nationwide philharmonic arrangements, Tori Amos leans back relaxed and lets the two elements show up in top form, which the bard has been loyal to for over twenty years: her voice and her piano.
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CD-Reviews
This year's Unrepentant Geraldines is timeless. It is difficult to attribute it to some fashion trends, the singer remains true to herself. The innovations here - this is her duet with her 13-year-old daughter in the song “Promise”, as well as more soulful texts about life and its important everyday components (although much deeper), life will not be affected even once.
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