THERE'S an old saying that people should never talk about sex, religion or politics in polite company.

Subscribers to that school of thought best leave singer Tori Amos off their dinner party lists, especially in the light of her new album Abnormally Attracted to Sin, on which she serves up all three in spades.

The outspoken and occasionally out-there alt-rock goddess has long been fascinated by all of the above, but her 10th studio album cuts right to the core of what happens when sexuality and religion intersect as something she likes to call "erotic spiritualism".

The daughter of a minister, Amos has long railed against the repression of many organised religions and says that her concept of sin is a whole lot different to that of the church.

Sex, she says, has been for too long associated with shame and the profane while at the same time being precluded from having any spiritual element. It has taken a long journey for her to be able to combine the two extremes, even within her marriage to sound engineer Mark Hawley.

"If you really looked at it, the idea of eroticism usually doesn't carry spirituality with it on a top-shelf porno mag. But what I am saying is that there is erotic spirituality.

"It has taken me a while to be able to step into that place where I am a mother, but within the word 'mother' is the word 'other'. And the other is the woman."

For Amos, 45, that sexual confidence and freedom, particularly for women, is inextricably linked with power and self-esteem, which she fears are being lost for many amid the global financial crisis.

The American UK-based singer says power and desirability traditionally equate with a successful career, and in her recent travels has met many families who have been devastated not just by the spectre of unemployment, but also the feelings of despair and inadequacy that it can bring. "I began to really see that so many women were in agony because they couldn't make it better for the people they loved."

Amos takes that despair to an extreme in her song Maybe California, which tells the story of a desperate woman driven to contemplating suicide. Amos, who has suffered more than her fair share of tragedy in life and whose deeply personal songs have dealt with her miscarriages and rape, admits to having her own dark thoughts.

"We can all get pushed to desperate places in our lives, and it's just I was able to . . . step into that place so that the song could be what it is."

Similarly, Ophelia was born from women with a history of self-harm who have come up to her at her shows. "I think they sense that certain songs are there through my career that talk about these conflicts."

Abnormally Attracted to Sin is out now.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail