From the Choirgirl Hotel offers chewy tales like the tough sway of 'Playboy Mommy,' in which a mother never quite apologizes to her dead daughter for not being a squeaky-clean Carol Brady mom; and 'Black-Dove (January),' an interiorized ballad about abuse and escape that breaks into rousing choruses of 'But I have to get to Texas/Said I have to get to Texas.' What the album is so unfailingly good at, though, is capturing the exact geography of one woman's imagination. In dashing rhythmic interpolations, a song titled 'Iieee' intercuts different meters and moods — suspended piano landscapes, straightforward rock 4/4 beats, gnarled industrial wastelands and a floating symphonic soundtrack from a film that has opened only in Amos' head.

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'We scream in cathedrals,' Amos sings, phrasing with an awesome gravitational pull. 'Why can't it be beautiful?' What the hell is rock & roll these days, anyway? Loud guitars? Transgressive hairstyles?

Electric beats? Platform shoes?

At any given time, it's all or none of these things. But right now, From the Choirgirl Hotel qualifies. It's a logical outcome of what Tori Amos has been doing this whole decade: In more ways than one, she screams in cathedrals.