Album Review

“I don’t know how to slow down,” sings Norah Jones on “Chasing Pirates,” the jaunty and fun opening track to her new album The Fall. That statement may come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever heard Jones’ music before. Her first three albums were filled with tasteful, jazz-inflected soft-rock with emphasis on the soft. Her most famous hits, “Don’t Know Why” and “Come Away With Me,” don’t move forward as much as hang in abeyance until they quietly disappear. Speed is not something you would associate with this artist.

Well, her ardent fans need not worry. The aforementioned lyric notwithstanding, Jones is still moving at a relatively languid pace. There may be a few more guitars and drums tossed into the mix this time around in the place of her piano, but this is still music that attempts to resonate without ever getting in your face.

Jones has made some changes, though. Ace session men like Marc Ribot (guitar) and Joey Waronker (drums) are part of the new lineup Jones has assembled for this go-around, and while the new band doesn’t exactly get her to pick up the tempo too much, they do provide an edge to the arrangements that casts her sultry voice in fine relief.

The band member most influential to this album is actually the one who isn’t here, as The Fall is essentially a series of songs relating to Jones break-up with ex-bandmate Lee Alexander. As befitting such personal material, Jones also takes on most of the songwriting chores solo, with a few assists from frequent collaborator Jesse Harris and high-profile co-writers like Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff.

Jones is still most at home with the slower material; when she tries to keep up with the thumping beat of “It’s Gonna Be,” it sounds uncomfortable. She nails the bluesy, lost-love lament “I Wouldn’t Need You,” which recounts the list of conditions that might allow her some closure (“If I could see my face without the tragedy.”) And the pretty lullaby “December” is a throwback to the strengths of her previous three albums, with just piano and acoustic guitar framing her beguiling vocal.

Her vocals are always impeccable, which is actually problematic at times. They show too much restraint, especially considering the subject matter. “Even Though” has a bluesy, mid-tempo feel to it, a la latter-day Bonnie Raitt, albeit with none of Raitt’s inherent grit and fire. And I kept wondering what a belter like, say, Fiona Apple could do with the torch song “Back To Manhattan;” Jones’ take is lovely but muted. When she sings a line full of desire and hurt like “I’m on the floor/Outside your door” on “You’ve Ruined Me,” she sings it with a matter-of-fact indifference that’s infuriating.

Luckily, this problem is mitigated in the closing few tracks when the immediacy of the lyrics, the best of Jones’ career, start to get her ire raised. “Stuck,” co-written with Sheff, finally finds her fired up about the situation, and “Tell Yer Mama” goes at her ex with a scalpel that proves this balladeer is human after all, full of hurt feelings and righteous anger.

Jones is too good-natured to leave us on this note, hence the charming closing track “Man of the Hour,” an ode to her dog as the only trustworthy man in her life. This sense of humor is yet another side of Jones really shining through on record for the first time. The Fall features many such aspects of her persona, stuff that we haven’t heard before. While it may not exactly be fast, it’s feisty enough at times to suggest what Norah Jones could do if she could let go of the caution that leaves a portion of her music sounding pretty but elusive.

1 Comment »