With
The Fall,
Norah Jones completes the transition away from her smooth cabaret beginnings and toward a mellowly arty, modern singer/songwriter.
Jones began this shift on 2007's
Not Too Late, an album that gently rejected her tendencies for lulling, tasteful crooning, but
The Fall is a stronger, more cohesive work, maintaining an elegantly dreamy state that's faithful to the crooner of
Come Away with Me while feeling decidedly less classicist. Some of this could be attributed to
Jones' choice of producer,
Jacquire King, best-known for his work with
Modest Mouse and
Kings of Leon, but
King hardly pushes
Norah in a rock direction;
The Fall does bear some mild echoes of
Fiona Apple or
Aimee Mann in ballad mode, but its arrangements never call attention to themselves, the way that some
Jon Brion productions do. Instead, the focus is always on
Jones' voice and songs, which are once again all originals, sometimes composed in conjunction with collaborators including her longtime colleagues
Jesse Harris,
Ryan Adams, and
Will Sheff of
Okkervil River. In addition to
King's pedigree, the latter two co-writers suggest a slight indie bent to
Jones' direction, which isn't an inaccurate impression -- there's certainly a late-night N.Y.C. vibe to these songs -- but it's easy to overstate the artiness of
The Fall, especially when compared to
Not Too Late, which wore its ragged ambitions proudly. Here,
Jones ties up loose ends, unafraid to sound smooth or sultry, letting in just enough dissonance and discord to give this dimension, creating a subtle but rather extraordinary low-key record that functions as a piece of mood music but lingers longer, thanks to its finely crafted songs. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine