Norah Jones - The Fall

If you were wondering whether Norah Jones was going to spend the rest of her life in a comfortable, not to mention lucrative, contemporary jazz niche, think again.

Freeing herself from the confines of being a chanteuse, she has channelled her not inconsiderable songwriting talents into moody, yet sassy, bare-bones blues-rock.

From the first bars of Chasing Pirates, a breezy organ-driven ditty, she revels in her new direction, creating a lot out of simple elements like the primal rhythms of Young Blood and It's Gonna Be – and her voice is, if anything, even more expressive. I Wouldn't Need You, Waiting and the anguished waltz of You've Ruined Me are almost effortlessly good, and Back To Manhattan and December have some of her old sound for those who'll miss it, but it's given a skewed, amusing twist in Man of the Hour.

Providing the backdrop to dinner parties the world over may have provided Jones with her entree to the big time, but this album proves she belongs there, and deserves to win new fans who can dismiss the thrashing of Don't Know Why as a bad dream.

Best tracks: Young Blood, Man of the Hour

• Reviewed by Nick Ward. CDs for review supplied by Everyman, Nelson.
  

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