Album: Norah Jones, The Fall, (Blue Note)

Another departure in the career of this unjustly resented pop girl.

In place of jazzily tinged pop or poppy folk-jazz we get a brittle, structured, ever so slightly gothic hush-rock describing the quotidian anxieties and romances of Norah’s inner world. There’s an awful lot of it and it does go on a bit, with few variations in texture, weight and tempo, but the essential quality of the thing is hard to argue with. James Gadson (drums) and Marc Ribot (guitars) act as guarantors of its scrawny musicality. Worth the time of your day