NEWSWEEK's First Listen to Norah Jones's New Album, 'The Fall'

For the ailing music industry, Norah Jones is about as close to a sure thing as it's got. Every one of her first three records has gone to No. 1 both inside and outside the U.S.─she's sold more than 36 million albums around the world, and she's not even 30. "My first album was made by just throwing stuff to the wall to see if it stuck," she has said about Come Away With Me, which won eight Grammy Awards. The songs on that album were so delicately precious that you could almost flick them with your fingernail and they'd fall apart. Wildly successful, they were the beginning of an evolution: as she has said, "I hadn't even figured out what kind of music I wanted to do yet."

As NEWSWEEK was allowed an exclusive first listen to some of The Fall─her fourth album, due out in November─it's clear she's still figuring it out, and that's a good thing. The simplest conclusion after four tracks is that Jones is sounding much more like the downtown New York where she lives now than the Texas where she grew up. Where soft pianos drove many of her melodies before, vibrato-laden, hard-strummed guitars lay the groundwork for the new songs. That's for good reason: Jones did most of the songwriting on the guitar, something new for her. The tunes are groovy with choppy drumbeats and lobbing bass lines─there are familiar elements, but much of the easygoing jazz infusions have been sidelined. If listening to her old albums was like sipping light beer, The Fall is like swallowing whisky straight up.

The change amplifies what Jones is making into a trend. Her second album, Feels Like Home, sounded more assertive, but fell much in line with her first. With guests including Dolly Parton, many of the songs drew the country roots out of Jones's Texas upbringing. Languid pianos and rolling shuffle beats made for easy listening. It was on her third record, Not Too Late, released in 2007, that she refined her sound. The songs were more produced, some with string arrangements, and featured a more mature voice willing to take risks, as on the attitude-filled, burlesque-sounding "Sinkin' Soon." It was the first time she'd written everything; billed as a departure, as a more mature release, it was.

On The Fall, it's not just the instruments that have changed. The album was produced by Jacquire King, a new addition whose rock credits include Kings of Leon and Modest Mouse. Several co-writers made the album, too, including the prolific alt-country-rock wunderkind Ryan Adams. Texas indie rocker Will Sheff helped write "Stuck," a twangy tune that still showcases Jones's big ability to sing beautifully up high. But the new approach also poses the biggest risk to her longtime fans: with the louder band, her voice, rather than a shining jewel, may be lost amid the ruckus.

But it shouldn't. Any ruckus on The Fall is still tame by most standards. The likely first single, "Chasing Pirates," is a head-bobbing, compact little song whose catchy hook could put Jones on radio stations that may have spun her only rarely before. She sings, "I don't know how to slow it down/My mind's racing from chasing pirates," and as wistful as the lyric sounds, what Jones has done with the new record is indeed another departure. Only this time she's heading down a louder, dusted-up rock path. As she sings in the hard-pushing "Young Blood," "I'll pretend my heart's not still on fire," but it's clear that it is.

Norah Jones could have kept recording iterations of Come Away With Me for decades. Legions of fans, the record label, and her savings account all would have been plenty happy. Clearly, that's not what she's doing. The gradual shifts away from that oversize debut have worked so far, and thankfully, The Fall is an even bigger step away, and a step up in what is still the beginning of a big career.