Tori Amos has never made a safe album, and her 18th studio record, ‘In Times of Dragons,’ out now via Universal/Fontana, isn’t about to break that streak. The 12 million-selling singer-songwriter delivers an ambitious allegorical story about power, resistance, and transformation, arriving at a moment when those themes couldn’t feel more urgent or alive.
At the center of the record is a fictionalized version of Amos herself, trapped in a marriage to a dangerous billionaire before embarking on a journey across America in search of freedom. It’s mythic storytelling grounded in the political reality of right now, and Amos pulls it off with the kind of commitment that only comes from an artist who’s been doing this for over 35 years and still has things worth saying.
She’s not shy about what drove the project. “This is a metaphorical story about the fight for democracy over tyranny,” Amos explains. “We really don’t know how this American experiment of democracy is going to end up. I’m a pragmatist. I’m not an optimist. I’m not a fatalist. But as a songwriter I needed to hear the clarion call and just say, to quote her beloved 1994 song ‘Cornflake Girl,’ this is not really happening? You bet your life it is.”
The album opens with the ominous piano chords of “Shush,” where the protagonist first recognizes the danger surrounding her. From there, the story builds, track by track, as she begins her transformation into the dragon she’ll need to become. The title track marks the moment she leaves that life behind, capturing the shock, uncertainty, and hard-won determination of that first step into the unknown.
The record also makes room for generational reflection. Amos’s daughter Natashya Hawley co-writes and sings on several tracks, including “Veins,” a call-and-response between mother and daughter interrogating what emotional and moral inheritance gets passed down. It’s one of the album’s most striking moments, personal and political all at once.
‘In Times of Dragons’ lands as one of the strongest statements of Amos’s career. Urgent, unsettling, and deeply human, it’s the kind of record that earns every comparison critics are already reaching for.
Amos is supporting the album with her largest European tour in over a decade, spanning 17 countries. She’s joined on the road by longtime collaborator, bassist and MD Jon Evans, renowned drummer Earl Harvin, and a trio of backing vocalists, Liv Gibson, Deni Hlavinka, and Hadley Kennary, performing new material alongside highlights from her celebrated catalog.