Drag queens singing country music is starting to be something of a subgenre in the queer country world. Certainly, there’s a je ne sais quois about someone who is expressing deep vulnerability after spending hours and hours crafting a separate identity. Amiss Tori brings us a meaningful new entry with Sequins & Steel, an album of ballads that dispenses with drag queen camp and cuts right to the core.
Tori hails from London, and the triple-outsider status of queer, drag, and British gives these more-country-than-country songs a real sense of an artist staking their claim. Amiss Tori’s interpretation of American culture as viewed from afar adds a poignant lens to her lush storytelling: “Dilettante” casts a pitying eye on a debutante whose shine has long since warn off, “Lady Liberty” imagines the moment when an immigrant becomes American (joke’s on us: most country singers would never consider that person American!), and “Time Machine” is a tender biography of a woman who regrets staying in her small town.
These piano-based compositions remind me of Paisley Fields and Jessye Fields: hook-forward and delicate, an emphasis on strong melodies, devastating stories, and a commitment to vulnerable performances. Amiss Tori delivers on all that and more with her obvious passion for that key ingredient of country music: the truth.
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