Tori Amos has spent three-and-a-half decades putting her declarations on pretty much any topic worth talking about — religion, womanhood, loss, politics, family legacy and abuse, to name a few — to music, powering her way to commercial and critical success thanks to virtuosic piano playing and rich lyricism. On May’s In Times of Dragons, she’s “documenting America right now in its fight for democracy” through an allegory featuring Celtic and Wicca folklore, a queer biker gang and the American South. It can be heady stuff, but it doesn’t take a literature professor to understand that the mystical-sounding Lizard Demons, for example, represent exploitative, power-hungry villains who have done so much damage to our real-world society. The average Dragons track can best be described as “sprawling” or “towering” in a way that should play nicely in the Mother Church, but you’ll also find moments of vintage, rollicking Amos on tracks like “Provincetown.” Baltimore alt-rocker Bartees Strange will open Friday’s show.
8 p.m. at the Ryman
116 Rep. John Lewis Way N.
