Listen to Tori Amos’ new “Better Angels” from her new Christmastide EP

The latest from singer-songwriter Tori Amos will appear on her upcoming EP Christmastide. But if you didn’t know that tidbit, there’s nothing about “Better Angels” that seems particularly seasonal; indeed, it’s a solid, emphatic rocker reminiscent of Amos’ late 90s / early 00s band era.

The song is driven by thundering drums, power chords, and pinch harmonic guitar leads, and sonically would not have sounded out of place on records like From The Choirgirl Hotel or American Doll Posse. The animated lyric video is pastoral and festive, with imagery of forests and snow, but the lyrics are less about the December holidays per se, and more about taking a big exhale after an emotionally trying 12 months.

“Oh what a year to be here,” Amos sings, and in a press statement, she addresses those tribulations of living through a pandemic, through an intense election year, and a year filled with civil unrest around issues of racial justice.

“With ‘Better Angels’ I wanted to acknowledge the year we have all been through and know that there is hope. We can find that hope within ourselves if we continue to focus our collective minds and souls. We are slowly starting to find a clearer path to transform together for the better of all.”

Listen to “Better Angels” below, read more about Christmastide here, and listen to the EP below.