Tori Amos
American Doll Posse
Epic/Sony BMG



There's probably not much more frightening than finding out an album you're about to listen to is a concept album based on the five facets of a singer's personality - that would be the titular posse, you see. There's Isabel, the outwardly political photographer; Clyde, the idealistic but wounded one; Pip, the confrontational one; Santa, the sensual, passionate one; and, finally, Tori herself: "the mother". It's a way to show other women that "they have their own version of the compartmentalized feminine which may have been repressed this in each one of them". Oh, and they've all got counterpoints in ancient Greek mythology. Scared yet?

Actually, there's no need to be. Unlike other multiple personality based concept albums like Bowie's 'Outside', which showed an artist stretched too far by the need to keep up character, 'American Doll Posse' is quite clearly Amos at her most comfortable and creative - by exploring these different characters as part of herself, she's managed to produce an album that feels extraordinarily whole, even over the space of 23 tracks. It's quite an achievement that the politics of Yo George don't feel out of place right next to the strutting and confident Big Wheel - in which Amos proudly chants "I am an M-I-L-F, don't you forget" - or that the seething spoken word of Fat Slut doesn't feel out of place next to the fragile Girl Disappearing.

That's not to say there's not the odd misstep here and there: Mr Bad Man is far too twee and Secret Spell is pure 'Dawson's Creek' soundtrack material. It's excusable, though; not just because the rest of the tracks go a long way towards making up for it, but because it feels like a part of the whole, as if the album wouldn't quite have the brilliant resonance it does without its mistakes.

Alistair Wallis