WERS 88.9 fm - Album Review: Norah Jones - The Fall

December 9^th, 2009

If you've turned on the television over the last month, odds are you've seen promotional ads of Norah Jones' fourth LP, The Fall. With a few number one debuts and well over a dozen top ten positions across the globe, Jones has reassembled herself with a new collective of musicians and one very good set of ears, engineer Jacquire King, the man who's been behind the boards for Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon and produced Tom Waits' Blood Money.

In addition to King's atmospheric mix, Lyle Workman and Marc Ribot hold down electric guitar duties on four of The Fall's thirteen cuts. Workman is perhaps best known as the composer and bandleader for the original music from the 2007 film, Superbad, and before that, he played guitar in Bourgeois Tagg. Ribot has worked with countless acts from Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett to DNA's Arto Lindsay and composer/saxophonist John Zorn.

What has become clearer over the years is that Jones thrives on confinement. Her sound is more on the edge than over it, of course, but it's her ability to construct songs under pressure (that is, three or so minutes) in the fashion of someone clipping wires to dismantle a bomb that keeps her there.

Jones is confident and firmly asserts herself as simple and expansive, refined yet innovative. She digs and uncovers a gem sound in the most unlikely places, like when she throws in a tight, rustic harmony on "Tell Yer Mama." But when it comes to a song like "Back to Manhattan," which lacks the melody of, say,  "Don't Know Why," you tend to wonder if this is what it sounds like when adults grow up.

Nevertheless, Norah Jones is not reverting to the sounds of 2002's Come Away With Me at all. It's fair to say we'd rather see her front a punk band than rehash old material. Fortunately, there is none of that here. Jones sheds that old skin in favor of Ribot's banjo, her own glockenspiel and some loud drums on the magnificent "It's Gonna Be." Jones' knack for simple melodies never cramps her frosted voice, which stands to be a natural delight for any listener.

-David Padula