In Times of Dragons is the eighteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. It was released on May 1, 2026, through Fontana Records. Amos described the album as a "metaphorical story about the fight for Democracy over Tyranny", using a fictional narrative involving a woman fleeing a wealthy and powerful "Lizard Demon" and ultimately transforming into a half-woman, half-dragon figure.
The album was recorded primarily at Amos's home studio, Martian AV, in Cornwall, with additional work at Mezzanotte in Los Angeles. It incorporates piano, synthesizers, harpsichord, guitars, bass, drums, percussion, electronics and orchestral arrangements. Amos produced the album herself, with Mark Hawley handling recording and mixing alongside Adrian Hall, and John Philip Shenale providing synthesizers, samplers and orchestral arrangements.
The album's narrative draws together political allegory, mythology, autobiography, motherhood and the physical and psychological changes associated with aging. Among its characters are the Lizard Demon, the Daughter, the "Gasoline Girls", a gay witch from Brooklyn, and various mythological figures whom Amos has described as muses, including the Celtic deity Lugh and the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet.
Background
Amos began developing the concept for In Times of Dragons while observing the political upheaval in the United States during 2025. She told Noah Michelson at an April 2026 HMV Q&A that she had initially been watching events unfold while John Philip Shenale was sending her articles about what was happening in America. Rather than write a straightforward political protest album, Amos chose to approach the subject through allegory.
The resulting story follows an alternate version of Amos who is married to a sadistic billionaire "Lizard Demon". The character is an amalgamation of real-world figures and power structures, although Amos has deliberately declined to identify specific individuals. In the opening song, "Shush", the husband attempts to silence the narrator while espousing authoritarian ideas about freedom, democracy and hierarchy. The narrator eventually flees, encounters people from whom she had previously been isolated, reunites with her daughter, and undergoes a transformation into a dragon-like figure.
Amos described the album as a story in which democracy itself is endangered. She explained that the narrator escapes from the Lizard Demon's penthouse and travels into the southern United States, where she encounters a number of characters, including the Daughter. "Stronger Together", which closes the main narrative, depicts the culmination of the relationship between mother and daughter as they choose to stand together against the dangers facing them.
The album's mythology developed alongside its political narrative. Amos has described Lugh of the Long Arm as one of the figures who influenced the record, along with Merlin and the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet. She told The Times that Lugh was communicating with her through journalist Noah Michelson, while Diana Summerland, a medium Amos has consulted since the late 1980s, was associated with her conversations concerning Merlin.
At the April 2026 HMV Q&A, Amos explained that Sekhmet's half-woman, half-lion form provided an archetypal model for the transformation at the heart of the album. She had already written a demo of "Shush" and had established the title track as a "world-builder", but initially did not know exactly how the middle of the narrative would develop.
The album also reflects Amos's changing relationship with her own body and voice. She has described becoming a dragon queen as partly metaphorical for moving through menopause and emerging from it transformed. She also acknowledged that hormonal changes had lowered her vocal range, leading her to adapt rather than attempt to reproduce the higher register associated with her earlier recordings.
Production
In Times of Dragons was produced by Amos, who had by this point produced the majority of her studio albums. Unlike a straightforward return to her earlier work, the album reunited Amos with several longtime collaborators in a particularly collaborative recording process.
At the July 2026 Rough Trade Q&A in New York City, Amos said that she, drummer Matt Chamberlain and bassist Jon Evans had not been together in the same room making music since 2009. Although they had exchanged material remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, she considered working together in person to be a significant creative difference. She attributed part of the album's character to this renewed collaboration, describing the record as unusually collective and emphasizing the way the musicians pushed one another during the sessions.
The album's sound combines Amos's piano and harpsichord with electric bass, drums, electronics, synthesizers, guitars and orchestral textures. Chamberlain's drums and electronic programming provide much of the album's rhythmic foundation, while Evans supplies bass and Hawley contributes guitars. Shenale's orchestral arrangements and synthesizer work provide a further layer of musical color.
Amos also deliberately adapted her vocal approach to the changes in her voice. In an interview with Mojo, she explained that her vocal range had changed and that she had responded by embracing a smokier register rather than treating the change as something negative.
The album's production was also shaped by the pressure of completing a highly narrative work. Amos told Michelson that Matt Chamberlain was waiting in the studio while she was still trying to complete some of the material. She described the experience as forcing her to work intensely, writing, discarding and rebuilding material rather than becoming overly attached to individual lines or ideas.
Theme and lyrical content
The central theme of In Times of Dragons is the conflict between democratic ideals and authoritarian power. Amos deliberately places this contemporary political conflict inside a fantastical narrative rather than writing a conventional protest album. The "Lizard Demon" is both a personal abuser and a metaphor for the powerful men and institutions Amos sees as threatening democratic society. The resulting story allows political domination and intimate control to mirror one another.
The opening song, "Shush", establishes this connection. The narrator is sexually and psychologically threatened by the Lizard Demon, who simultaneously rejects the compatibility of freedom and democracy. The song also invokes Cassandra, the mythological prophet whose warnings were destined not to be believed, and concludes by recalling Amos's own "Silent All These Years". The callback turns the narrator's crisis into a confrontation with her younger self and the question of whether the woman who once found her voice still exists.
The title track expands the story into a form of world-building. The narrator realizes that she is changing physically and psychologically, asking whether she has gone from "Beauty" to "Beast". The song also introduces the idea that her own history is implicated in the forces she is now fleeing: she remembers an earlier relationship, a daughter and the luxury into which she had become absorbed. The political crisis is therefore presented as both an external threat and a reckoning with personal choices and complicity.
"Provincetown" marks a change from flight to community. The Massachusetts resort becomes a place of refuge populated by characters who exist outside the hierarchy represented by the Lizard Demon. The song introduces the gay witch from Brooklyn and other figures who provide the narrator with guidance and a sense of chosen community. The instruction to "build a bridge" for those left behind changes the narrator's goal from individual survival to collective resistance.
"St. Teresa" turns the album's attention toward the religious shame that Amos has explored throughout her career. The song invokes Teresa of Ávila and her mystical writings, particularly the imagery of the "Interior Castle" and its seven mansions. Amos has described the song as addressing the way patriarchal religion can use guilt and shame against women's sexuality and desire while retaining her longstanding interest in the possibility of direct spiritual experience.
"Gasoline Girls" and the surrounding songs advance the journey through the southern United States. "Ode to Minnesota", despite its brevity, is one of the album's most explicitly contemporary political moments. Amos wrote it in response to the killing of people by ICE agents and the protests in Minnesota. She described the events as a "sea change" and said the song was the last piece to arrive before the album's deadline.
Motherhood becomes increasingly important as the narrative develops. "Veins", "Strawberry Moon", "Pyrite" and "Stronger Together" were co-written with Amos's daughter, Natashya Hawley, who also provides additional vocals on the album. "Stronger Together" is the emotional resolution of the story: the mother and daughter move from separation and fear toward mutual recognition, safety and solidarity.
The final songs shift the transformation from metaphor into mythology. In "Tempest", Amos incorporates material whose origins date back to a 2005 soundcheck in Germany. At the July 2026 Rough Trade Q&A, she explained that the song had been worked on during several earlier periods, including around Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Night of Hunters, but that the original material was eventually abandoned because its strongest musical section did not fit the surrounding song. The surviving musical tag was later incorporated into "Tempest", with its tempo increased and the orchestration revised accordingly.
"23 Peaks" provides the album's final transformation. Amos has described the song as an improvised performance that emerged while she and Shenale were working in the studio. Shenale asked her to tell the story of how the album's transformation ended; Amos began playing and singing at a keyboard while unaware that Pro Tools was recording. The vocal and keyboard performance heard on the finished track came from that take, which Amos said she could not successfully reproduce when she later attempted to re-record it.
The dragon therefore has several simultaneous meanings. It represents resistance to the Lizard Demon, the emergence of a new form of power, and the physical and psychological transformation associated with aging. Amos has also connected the transformation to menopause, treating the changes to her body and voice not as a loss of identity but as an invitation to become something different.
Recording
The principal recording location for In Times of Dragons was Martian AV, Amos's studio at her home in Cornwall, England, with additional work at Mezzanotte in Los Angeles. Amos's Cornwall studio is located alongside her home and rehearsal facilities, allowing the recording environment to function as part of the same creative space in which she prepared for the 2026 tour.
The album brought Amos back into a room with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans for the first time since 2009. Amos said that although she had exchanged musical ideas remotely with them during the pandemic, the experience of physically playing together changed the creative process. She regarded this as one of the principal reasons the finished album felt particularly collaborative.
Chamberlain played drums, percussion, drum programming and electronics, while Evans contributed basses and Mark Hawley played guitars and handled recording. John Philip Shenale supplied synthesizers, samplers and orchestral arrangements. Amos played Bösendorfer grand piano, synthesizers, keyboards and harpsichord in addition to singing and producing.