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Midwinter Graces
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 10 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Universal Republic
Release Date: 10 November 2009
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Summary
The latest album for the singer-songwriter is 12 tracks (14 on the deluxe edition or 15 with the iTunes bonus track) of traditional and original holiday songs.
Also By This Artist: Abnormally Attracted To Sin American Doll Posse Scarlet's Walk Strange Little Girls The Beekeeper
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
PopMatters
Midwinter Graces is 12 tracks long, a perfect length, and most of the production is spot-on.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
Amos sounds so tranquil she could almost be floating, but the stateliness of the orchestral backing keeps the songs grounded.
Read Full Review >Billboard.com
Her latest release, Midwinter Graces, is a typically provocative-in the best possible way-entry in the yuletide canon.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
Midwinter Graces succeeds where so many other holiday classics fail miserably. I never thought I'd say this, but with Midwinter Graces, Amos has made a holiday album that deserves to sit alongside those classics that you'll actualy listen to this winter.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
Perhaps where Midwinter Graces suffers most is that it will be resigned to the world of the holiday album, making brief appearances from only late November to early January, garnering at most a passing mention the rest of the year. At the very least, though, it is a holiday record that will be remembered once a year.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
Thanks to some familiar melodies, it can sometimes seem seasonally appropriate, but it always seems purely Tori, who has somehow managed to deliver an easy listening version of all her signatures in one tidy, not so-Christmasy, package.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
As a subversion of religious themes, Midwinter misses the mark entirely; as a traditional holiday album courtesy of one of Christianity's most astute pop cultural critics, it's an ironic, pleasantly competent oddity.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
If Bob Dylan can do it, so can Tori Amos, whose own nod to the festive season, Midwinter Graces, is a rather more palatable, ornately arranged selection of self-penned songs and such carols as Star Of wonder and Emmanuel. [Jan 2010, p. 126]
Paste Magazine
Amos fails to find an entryway into these songs that justifies her willingness to bury her personality inside them, ending up with a well-meaning but ultimately inessential vanity project.
Read Full Review >Filter
Amos said she wanted to reclaim the songs from religious appropriations, but in the end, she just barely save us all from complete shame. [Holiday 2009, p. 98]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Robyn H gave it a10:
This is beautiful!
Sam K gave it a9:
A lush, wintery, melancholy album that is the perfect antitode to sterile Xmas pop. While "Harps of Gold" is absolutely awful, she makes up for it with the last two tracks "Winter's Carol" and "Our New Year," two of the best songs she has ever written.
Cool Face gave it a7:
The faults of her last 4 albums are absent - the right amount of tracks, no filler, mostly piano, return of the harpsichord, and not bad production either. Who'd have thought the dreaded christmas album would prove to be her best since Scarlet's Walk.
Krissy G gave it a2:
With "Midwinter Graces", Tori Amos has finally put her ability to crank out the product on full force in a year that also saw the release of her fourth consecutive double-album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin. Amos's ability to craft a good melody is best put to work on tracks like "Winter's Carol", an Amos original from an upcoming musical, or "Holly, Ivy, and Rose", a duet with her daughter that incorporates Amos' writing into the traditional carol, "The Holly and the Ivy". If only years ago she had joined forces with a screenwriter to create an inspired Disney musical, Amos could have produced a work fitting of her unique compositional ability. Instead, Amos falls prey to the fashion of her pop persona and drowns her songs in fastidiously cliched MOR production in a pitch for perfection ("Harps of Gold"), resulting in an album that will remain unnoticed and unbought for many Christmases to come.
elly gave it a10:
The only christmas-themed album which I would listen to all year long. It's always nice to hear Tori sing some pretty songs I love her voice.
