American Doll Posse (2007)

Image credit: Blaise Reutersward

ALL DOLLED UP Amos successfully glams up on her ninth album, but her high-concept comes off a little raggedy

American Doll Posse, Tori Amos' ninth album, is sung from the POV of five characters, each represented in the booklet by various costumes and wigs, à la 2001's Strange Little Girls. Good luck figuring out who's who, since ''Isabel,'' ''Clyde,'' ''Pip,'' ''Santa,'' and ''Tori'' mostly seem to share their creator's sassy, antipatriarchal, divine-feminist sensibility...but they'll all be getting their own blogs, so we can sort that out later. Too bad Posse is a conceptual wreck, because it benefits from some of the beefiest, most borderline-glam-rock moments Amos has put on record.