Scarlet's Walk

1	Amber Waves 3:39
2	A Sorta Fairytale 5:29
3	Wednesday 2:29
4	Strange 3:07
5	Carbon 4:35
6	Crazy 4:27
7	Wampum Prayer 0:44
8	Don't Make Me Come to Vegas 4:52
9	Sweet Sangria 4:02
10	Your Cloud 4:30
11	Pancake 3:55
12	I Can't See New York 7:16
13	Mrs. Jesus 3:06
14	Taxi Ride 4:01
15	Antoher Girl's Paradise 3:36
16	Scarlet's Walk 4:18
17	Virginia 3:56
18	Gold Dust 5:56

Barnes & Noble

Tori Amos took some time away from songwriting to recharge her creative batteries with the all-covers album Strange Little Girls, but she returns with another set of soulfully complex original musings on Scarlet's Walk. It's an album that spans both the psychic and sonic spectrum, setting jarring blacks and reds against soft-focus pastels, making for plenty of fascinating juxtapositions. Amos explains the album as an American travelogue, following the journey of Scarlet, who may be a woman or who may be the bloody trail of American history. Such are the shifting correspondences of the album. Longtime fans will embrace "Amber Waves" as trademark Tori, querulous and quixotic, her trembling vocals rising above a stately piano line that's itself buoyed by a stark, simple rhythm -- all the better to focus on the ambiguous tale of debauchery and reform. As ever, she's unblinking in her assessments of her own past life (the angst-riddled "Your Cloud") as well as those of past lovers (the alternately lilting and incisive "A Sorta Fairytale"). Some of the songs were apparently inspired by Amos's personal reaction to the September 11th terrorist attacks, a thread that comes across most clearly in the wan, tear-stained strains of "I Can't See New York." She's perfectly capable of taking the opposite tack, however, as evidenced by the seething "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas," an emotional doppelganger -- albeit on a less internalized level -- for Little Earthquakes's "Me and a Gun." At once direct and cryptic, these are the type of songs sure to inspire discussion -- and passion -- among Amos's ardent followers for some time. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Perhaps Tori Amos didn't intentionally whittle her audience down to merely the rabidly devoted ever since Boys for Pele, but it sure seemed that way with the deliberately abstract arrangements, double albums, and cover records. That devoted cult may be all that pay attention to Scarlet's Walk, her first album for Epic, but it marks a return to the sound and feel of Under the Pink and is her best album since then. Much was made at the time of release about its concept -- conceived as a journey through modern womanhood, when Tori herself journeyed through each state in the union -- but following the narrative is secondary to the feel of the music, which is warm, melodic, and welcoming, never feeling labored as so much of her last four albums often did. This doesn't mean it's an altogether easy listen: an intensive listen reveals layers of pain and an uneasiness murmuring underneath the surface, but it's delivered reassuringly, in croons and lush arrangements that nevertheless are filled with quirks, making it both comforting and provocative. Which, of course, is what Tori Amos delivered in her early years. If this isn't as startling as Little Earthquakes or majestic as Under the Pink, so be it. It's confident, alluring, and accomplished, luring listeners in instead of daring them to follow. And, frankly, it's a relief that she finally delivered another record like that. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rolling Stone

Amos' albums have always been obsessed with the quest for self-realization; Scarlet's Walk takes a thinly veiled alter ego on a journey across America in search of the real her. Greg Kot