Norah Jones goes noir on 'Little Broken...

Norah Jones goes noir on 'Little Broken...

Norah Jones' new album evolved from the break-up of a relationship.

Norah Jones doesnt sound like herself on her new CD. She tricks up her rich, burgundy tone, and banishes her beamingly sweet character. She sounds more pinched in the throat, higher in pitch and snarkier in attitude. Naturally, she retains her understated and methodical approach. The woman nicknamed Snorah Jones wasnt about to turn wild or manic overnight. But its an undeniably darker Norah than weve heard before.

And no wonder.

True to its title, Little Broken Hearts amounts to an end-of-the-relationship concept album, told from the point of view of a woman in full control of her poisonous feelings. Unsurprisingly, Jones went through a break-up right before creating the music. To seal the mood, she came up with a sound as broodingly coherent as the soundtrack to a domestic drama.

She had key help in that mission. Danger Mouse (Brian Joseph Burton), a man known for creating whole scenes in sound, produced the album. Jones had already worked with him in a one-off project from last year, Rome, which aimed to reinvent the mood of the great Italian soundtracks of the 60s, created by icons like Ennio Morricone.

In some ways, Hearts sounds like a more vivid and fully realized version of that indifferent disc. It stresses fuzz-toned guitars over Jones more common keyboards, many of them tweaked to sound like Morricones psychedelic leaps from his spaghetti Western scores. Guitars shimmer and jab, the better to set a mood of menace and mental torture. An enveloping atmosphere looms over the whole disc the way a fog rolls over San Francisco at dusk.

In Say Goodbye the guitars have a metallic edge to indicate violence. In After the Fall, theyre prickly and short, as is the rhythm, suggesting steadily mounting frustration.

But its Jones new way of singing that makes her point of view riveting. As always, its a cooly controlled style. Jones is nothing if not self-conscious. But dont mistake her composure for even-handedness. It just serves to give her fury focus.

In the opening track, Good Morning, Jones sets the sarcastic tone: My thoughts on leaving/are back on the table/I thought you should know.

Later, she turns outright cynical. It isnt easy to stay in love/if you cant tell lies, she sings in Say Goodbye, But her most delicious expression of emotion comes in the lovely Miriam, which addresses the other woman, who, it seems, may be a friend. Miriam/its such a pretty name/and Ill keep saying it until the day you die, Jones sings with chilling relish.

Its refreshing to hear a singer so often cast as decorative tap into such deformed feelings. Better, Jones has done so in her own vocabulary, creating a poised and high-minded rant.