Native Invaders by Tori Amos | Album Review
Amos’s 15th album aims to get to the heart of the division in a post-Trump world.
One rising wave that was beginning to flood into the minds of many creatives was growing fissure in political opinions coming up to and especially after the 2016 election state side. Like many who noticed the alarming rhetoric that was being effortlessly thrown out by the right, Amos felt a call write on these growing divisions through her creative lens:
“The songs on Native Invader are being pushed by the Muses to find different ways of facing unforeseen challenges and in some cases dangerous conflicts. The record looks to Nature and how, through resilience, she heals herself. The songs also wrestle with the question: what is our part in the destruction of our land, as well as ourselves, and in our relationships with each other?”
If the album could have a color, it would be a bright orange. Much of the instrumentation glows brilliantly in the evening shades of a setting sun. This is both a positive and a negative surrounding the sonic palette of the record.
“Reindeer King” is probably the best opening track on any of her projects since “Shattering Seas” or “Amber Waves”. It’s a marvelously textural experience that creates a crystalline landscape through vocal delay, synth based bagpipes, and lush piano melodies. We are working through our disillusionment back to ourselves again, “grief it brings need/ the naked freeze/ caught in the frost/ numb unbearable thoughts/ your inner need-fire/ not lost.” This visit to the reindeer king is a metaphorical journey back from all the pain and grief we’re feeling over the continued barrage of malevolent political rhetoric. The bridge shows us just how far Amos is willing to go to protect and heal the opens she loves, “skate all the way/ just to hold your hand/ to take away your pain/ you know that I would skate/ from Scandinavia/ all the way to the moons/ of Jupiter with you.”
“Wings” offers a safe place to release your emotions. I am not a fan of the computerized beat underneath Wurlitzer playing. This with the technical programmed sounds cheapen the song in my opinion. Amos sees through the hardened exterior to the internal suffering you are trying to manage. She know well that division has invaded her home and wants nothing but to give those close to her a safe place to unleash their emotions, “is it too late/ to make myself/ a safe place/ I could not see/ the dangers/ the sacrifices/ you were making.” In the act of arguing, she’s both hurt the one she loves and herself. These wings we wishes to give to her loved ones is a place of escape (even from herself if need be).
“Broken Arrow” takes this sub-nocturnal sound and goes a little too far with it. The funky “wah wah” effect on the guitar on the song’s verses and Amos’s melodic change at the chorus just don’t fall right to me. The broken arrow is a symbol to division and hate that has built oceans between us. Each chorus reminds us to think before we act, “rash and reckless/ won’t get us/ to where we want to be/ are we emancipators or oppressors/ of lady liberty?/ have we lost her.” Tori ends to song as a call to keep those in power accountable for their choices.
“Cloud Riders” is the first single released off of the project. The sound of song calls back to some of the country tinged vibes from Scarlet’s Walk. The languorous guitar against the Wurlitzer and Hammond B3 plays into the his Americana painted vibe. This is her preparation for the coming storm of division and hatred to come, “standing on the edge of the cliff/ didn’t think it would come to this/ a dead calm before the storm/ not a sound from their engines/ from the other side.” The song’s chorus plays homage to Annie Finch’s poem “October Moon”.
“Up the Creek” is a duet between Tori and her Natashya (Tash) Hawley. This is the most different track on the album sonically. It has the fastest tempo and a more electronic and sort of indie rock inspiration. The song directly address the growing climate change crisis and the apathy growing around it, “Good Lord willin and the creek don’t rise/ we may just survive/ if the Militia of the Mind/ arm against those climate blind.” Tori’s section is a call to arms to keep fighting for change, “Gone/ when hope is almost/ Gone/ you know that’s the time/ we must stand/ Strong.”
“Breakaway” looks at the dissolving relationships due to the ever ascending tide of division that had been growing both State side and across the pond. The wounds inflicted by those whom you’d least expect has left an impression on Amos, “you feel betrayed/ and I feel played/ by our so called friends/ not the friends we should have made.” She sees the landscape has changed and what was hidden from view is now plan to see. Through this ever growing toxic and dark, Tori wishes to imbue hope in this time period, “so when the story ends… /then I beg the bard/ to write another scene/ because you’re the one/ who taught me to believe…/ I should have said it though/ before yesterday/ before your breakaway.”
Where the milky orange glow of the instrumentation works the best is on the track “Wildwood”. The gentle purr of the electric guitar against Amos’s Wurlitzer is like a warm embrace. Amos uses the Persephone mythos to provide us the ideal of escaping the darkness that has descended upon us.
“The Robert Graves Greek Myths was by my side during the writing of Native Invader. “Wildwood” is very much the story of Persephone’s return after being in the underworld. Because I’m a minister’s daughter, maybe I ran to myth, just needing some kind of different perspective, and then I ran to the gnostic gospels and trying to get early Christianity before it became overtaken by a patriarchy. We’re seeing the word freedom being harnessed by American oligarchs, authoritarians, and women can be a part of that, but that has been really the force behind Native Invader — to reinvade these words, like “freedom.” Like “heritage.” We’re reclaiming these words, but for ourselves, as sovereign. Freedom is sovereignty. It doesn’t get to be owned by a party. It’s something that each of us has to reclaim for ourselves, and seeing these words getting twisted, like “liberty” … It’s been traumatizing.”
Her rise from the underworld and subsequent birth of spring from this bring in the spirit of hope, “past the Alders and the Oaks/ through the Willow Grove snakes Ivy’s gift/ which taught you can’t escape anguish
but how to live with it/ then reports from the robins/ form in you an inner radiance/ it’s as if they fused with a spirit you knew/ who’s come back again.”
“Chocolate Song” is probably the most egregious song on the album. We continue with the glitchy computerized sounds that underlay the Tori’s Wurlitzer. I appreciate these blurring out when we get to the song’s chorus.Amos looks at the internal division between family and partners. In order to be able to understand each other better, she compares herself to the flexibility of chocolate, “I don’t hate you/ satiny luscious chocolate
no, I need to be more like you/ within the tension of your opposites/ somehow the lingering sweetness/ without betraying your bitterness.” This one really misses the mark for me. I get the sentiment of wanting to meld back together after divisive rhetoric has invaded your nest, but the concept doesn’t really address how to overcome this scars. It’s a skippable song.
“Bang” is a direct commentary to weaponry of words used much more in through the medium of social media. Amos comes back to a more organic sound here. She’s vocally strong and the darker tone the piano and thunderous bang of the drum provides makes for a joyous listen. I do think it’s six minute run time is a little long, but the song never seems tiring. The opening verse calls out the xenophobia towards immigrants and the irony that our ancestors were once all immigrants themselves. Words here not only are attributed to mental harm, but turned into call to do physical harm. She also relates us the big bang and the material of stars themselves, “‘Can’t they see’/ he said to me/ ‘that we all/ are Molecular Machines’/ goals and dreams.” This listing of elemental material of stars acts as our great equalizer.
“Climb” acts as our escape from those with harmful rhetoric. Her climb over the church wall calls to the escape from Christian fundamentalists. Tori also harkens back to how a woman’s independence in these sects is a treacherous one, “all of me wants to believe/ that somehow you will save me Saint Veronica/ he said ‘kneel before your judges in reverence/ your penance for the woman you’ll become/ you knew if you talked there’d be a consequence/ your sentence for the woman you’ll become’.” We end out the song climbing out of the evil mire sunken upon us. We get the permission to retreat to heal mentally and emotionally before we try to forgive.
Another highlight on the album is “Bats”. I really appreciate the melodic structure Tori incorporates with the keys. This acts as our buffer into the following track “Benjamin”. Unlike the next track, I like the metaphorical stance Amos takes on our promise to preserve nature, “sea maids made with humanity/ warning ‘the most precious thing/ that we’ll fight to save the fate of our waves/ with her blue satin crashing’.” She brings up an expert at William and Mary university that discusses his knowledge on the fates of our oceans and planet if we continue down the path we are on now. The “bats” are these experts swooping in to gather knowledge and pass it on to save this world we live on.
“Benjamin” has a structure similar to the more politically minded tracks off of Unrepentant Geraldines, which didn't really impress me. I find the digital computer sounds to be a bit too one the nose. Amos takes a little bit of a 60s/70s sound through the accompanying electric guitar. Similar to tracks off of Abnormally Attracted to Sin which experimented with this sound, I’m not really taken by it. Benjamin is her covert “bat” friend securing information surrounding the climate crisis. The ever twisted fact checking, removal of scientists, and the case of Juliana vs United States are discussed through this medium.
“I think there is a lot of distraction right now, while things are happening. It shocks me that people are talking about… the erosion that’s happening at the Environmental Protection Agency: protecting whom? Protecting what — the American oligarchs? That’s the shocker for me — what’s going on in the courts, Juliana vs United States [a case which inspired the track “Benjamin”], the Water Protectors for Lakota nation — those things that we only hear snippets about now. The distractions are there. And, look, I know that people in New York are consumed with yet another tweet and, if you’re a political journalist, that’s fine. You have to be on the front line, you’ve got to know what’s going on, that’s your gig. But if your gig is something else and you’re not doing that gig because you’re being diverted, then you’ve taken yourself away — you’re not seeing things, you’re just a consumer.”
The final song on the album is a touching look at Amos’s late mother’s struggle with communication after a stroke. “Mary’s Eyes”. We follow Tori as she tries to pull back her mother from the complications of her stroke. One way she can connect with her mother through this is by singing hymns, “Hymns for us to sing/ She’s a believer/ Hymns locked in her memory/ I’m a believer they’re the key.” I know all to well what issues that aphasia can cause in a loved one post stroke. Because of this, the song really hits home of me. She also calls out to one of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman characters here:
“Songs are the way that I understand what’s really going on — what I’m either hiding from myself or feeling. And also sometimes with a song — it’s almost like it’s already there and just needs to be expressed. If I could express what was going on in any other way, I probably wouldn’t write that song. Something strange had happened before all this happened to Mary and changed Mary’s life. Somebody got in touch with somebody who then got in touch with Neil Gaiman, who is my spirit brother, and he talked to me about a Death Midwife up in Scotland, who had sent a note about what she does. She helps people to cross to the other side. So I started to think — well, if you can help them across to the other side, why can’t you help cross ’em back?”
There’s a subtle nod to her mother’s Native American heritage in some of the sonic tones presented in the song’s opening. The piano and warm synth strings provide an added since of compassion to the underlying sense of desperation.
Compared to her prior album, Unrepentant Geraldines, Native Invaders feels much fuller than the last project. I’m quite glad the vocal doubling and panning was removed from this project. Amos has settled well into the adult alternative realms with this album. When it works, it works really nicely. Tracks like “Reindeer King”, “Climb”, “Wildwood”, and “Mary’s Eyes” all display Tori’s knack for songwriting. The velvety textures woven in through the album are a welcomed calm against some of the more confrontational themes. That said, there are some moments that miss the mark. I am not a fan of this very digital tone that comes up in “Wings” and “Benjamin”. It kind of cheapens the sound to me. “Broken Arrow” is a bit much instrumentally. I find “Chocolate Song” to be one of the most mediocre songwriting moments in Tori’s catalog. It’s strengths greatly out weigh its weaknesses. My overall thoughts on Native Invaders:
Loved it: “Reindeer King”, “Cloud Riders”, “Bang”, “Climb”, “Wildwood”, “Bats” & “Mary’s Eyes”
Liked it: “Up the Creek” & “Breakaway”
Disliked it: “Wings”, “Broken Arrow”, “Chocolate Song” & “Benjamin”
My overall rating: 6.0 out of 10.
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