Rich in textures orchestral and piano with that distinctive, articulate voice, the American artist’s new album is suffused with nature’s inspiration via a long Covid lockdown on the Cornish Coast, and by stages of grief for her mother. The songs Speaking with Trees and Flowers Burn to Gold are particularly inspired by Mary, who died two years ago, the former referencing ashes of Amos’s mother, which she hid in a treehouse in Florida. , Metal Water Wood meanwhile may appear to come from the coastal environment but more directly by reading about the ideas of hardness and softness through the philosophy and techniques of Bruce Lee. Another standout is Swim To New York State, about a friend moving away and the pain of isolation and rootlessness, a classic with sparse piano and moving orchestration, and filled with specific images of the Cornish coast, to Spies, with a sprightly pace which eccentrically refers to metaphorical aardvarks on the London Underground. Me & A Gun is a particularly dark song, but overall this is a mature, reflective, melancholy and also stirring, grand, 16th studio album, by the 58-year-old, and her first for four years, but nevertheless, with is filled with brighter moments and images that evoke crashing waves and swirling emotions. Out on Decca.
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