While the first two albums were dominated by covers, "Not Too Late" is all solo or co-written original material.

It's not startling, as these songs continue her pop-meets-country with a dash of smoky cabaret style. Nor is it exactly revelatory. Firstly her life, apart from the fame, has been remarkably normal and uneventful and lyrically the new material is mostly observational. ("I have a wonderful boyfriend. So how am I going to write a tortured break-up song? My life is really good and I don't want to ruin it just for a good song.").

Still, there are a few pointed lines about misplaced love and even some mild political commentary in "My Dear Country".

The album has its share of strong tracks, like the Dylanesque "Wish I Could", with its unexpected half-note elisions, or the trad-jazzy Tom Waits-like "Sinkin' Soon", or the haunting, whimsical, cello-darkened "Broken".

The mood is mostly dreamy, lazy country-rockers, quirky waltzes, a little earthy bluesiness and bits of laid-back funk, and there's even a demurely delivered anti-Bush song.

Jones's voice, always more characterful than the easy-listening tag ever implied, sometimes shifts to a strange place between Madeleine Peyroux's or Diane Krall's jazzy smokiness and the sultry, jazz/soul balladry a la Billie Holiday..

But Norah's and partner Lee Alexander's tunes need to improve if the singer isn't to retreat to covering classics again, as she almost certainly will. It's pretty music (though the sugary " Little Room" gets to tooth-twinge point), beautifully performed.

But Norah Jones has more to offer than this, and the needs of the EMI boardroom probably won't help her find it.

This album is another solid performance from one of my favorites.

I have listened to it many many times and I like it better as listen to it more. Once again we have the voice and the piano. There are a few new moves she shows us but nothing heart stopping.

At the end of the day I don't think most of us care what she sings frankly, her voice is addicting and is like a drug to us. Oh you say you wish she would sing something different and stretch her talent and grow and yada yada but most of us would listen to her no matter what she sings because you become so addicted to the voice and sound that it doesn't really matter if she is singing an old country song like Cold Cold Heart, an early rockabilly like Love Me (from the Little Willies) a Bob Dylan number or somthing of her own composition. In the end it is just the soothing that we want and that is what she does. Her music is sometimes interesting, sometimes a little boring but always soothing. Even if she is talking about a broken heart and lost love she is making us feel like with her voice to hang on to we can make it.

So I love her and listen to whatever she puts out. I am not enough of a music expert to judge her artistically, I like what I like and if it sounds good to me I say it is good. Norah..you are as good as it gets.

Following the success of Norah Jones's first two albums, 2001's "Come Away With Me" and 2004's "Feels Like Home", (which sold around 17 million and 10 million copies respectively), I'm sure I'm not the only fan who's been wondering whether that level of success can be sustained and what she would do next, i.e. would she stick to her established formula and risk being savaged by the critics for "playing safe", being "dull and boring" and inducing slumber ("sleepytime pop" is how one newspaper critic recently described her music) or would she branch out and try something new, and risk alienating settled and comfortable (not to mention lazy) fans like me?

The answer to the first question remains to be seen of course - after a couple of listens, I'm unsure as to whether this is a better album than the previous two - but happily, in regard to the second one, I think it's safe to say Jones has done both. She still sounds like the Norah we all love but she has made slight changes to her style in what, to this listener, sounds like a clever attempt to expand artistically without ruffling the feathers of her core audience. There's a new producer at the helm in Lee Alexander (Arif Mardin sadly passed away late last year) but while there's no overt new sound to speak of, there is a definite sense of a change in mood. The jaunty "Sinkin' Soon" has a darker edge and a sense of foreboding about it that's new, for instance, even though it is essentially a love song. It's a lot more percussive too. Things get slightly more electronic, even funky for a couple of minutes, on "Thinking About You", her most close-to-formula song on here and similarly, on "Be My Somebody". She nibbles at getting political on songs like "Wish I Could" and "My Dear Country" but she refrains from actually biting. On the former she sings: "Love in the time of war isn't fair/ He was my man but they didn't care". She sails a bit closer to the wind on the latter: "Nothing is as scary as election day," she sings, and later, "Who knows, maybe the plans will change/ Who knows, maybe he's not deranged." Further than many might have expected but I'm sure they'll be those who'll say she could've gone the distance.

And I do question the wisdom of the whistling on "Little Room".

But mostly there are no surprises here. Overall, the sound is a little drier maybe, with more acoustic guitar and cello than I recall hearing on her previous works but it's Norah Jones, still essentially the same but just a little different. Is she pop, is she jazz, is she country or is she folk? Maybe I'm getting too old to care but I just find attempts to categorise her boring now. Whatever she does, she does damn well and what's more, she makes it all seem so effortless. Her creamy voice never seems to rise above a whisper, a sonic caress, the kind of things lullabies are made of. (Maybe the sleepytime pop critic had a point after all). I put on my Norah Jones and I am immediately and very easily able to forget the madness going on all around me. The world feels like an easy, gentle place where everything is all right. Well worth paying $9.99 for, in my view.

Norah Jones and her music seem to be very polarising, if the reviews on this site are anything to go by. It seems people either love her or hate her. I love her of course and in my book, any female singer/songwriter who can achieve the level of commercial success that she has without her videos on heavy rotation on MTV, her airbrushed face (and body in skimpy dresses) plastered all over glossy magazines or a canny PR machine frenetically making sure she remains at the forefront of our collective consciousness, surely has to be doing something right.

I stand amazed at the reviews of this album. They miss the mark... by a mile! Some folks want to make Norah Jones into something she just ain't. She is what she is; a fine singer, and now song writer. Her tempos have generally been slow before. I just don't think people are listening to the lyrics - thoughtful, original and reflective. That she wrote them herself shows tremendous growth. One person wrote this is an album to make love by. Oh pleeeeeeease. She is also not a cool jazz performer. She doesn't fill a specific niche. This is what I like; she combines jazz, country, folk, soul, et al. This is also a wonderfully recorded album by Blue Note - imaging, soundstage, and presence to boot. Blue Note took their time in making this one - thanks. Hey, if this isn't your bag, move on.

I remember when Norah won the grammy for "Come Away With Me". At that time, she stated something to the effect of "this wasn't even a real album ,it was just a demo", or something like that. But, the thing is, it WORKED. It showcased her amazing talent and her wonderful voice. Her talent is great enough that it doesn't need anything more than a demo--we're not talking Britney Spears here. Unfortunately, things have gone downhill since.

Her two albums since her debut have suffered from "studio-ization". Her voice is not as clear on the last two albums, and on her 2nd album, her voice was ruined by the mix which was drowned by studio garbage. (The right kind of studio-ization works for some kinds of music, like M. Ward for example, but just not for Norah.) This, her 3rd album, is a little bit better than the 2nd mix-wise (though still way below the first), but not as strong song-wise. The couple of best songs on this album are, unfortunately, barely on par with the worst songs on the first album.

Norah Jones proved she can write great songs, as demonstrated by "Come Away With Me", however, in her attempt to write or co-write ALL of the songs on this latest CD proved that she also still has a LONG way to grow. It seems that she would have been better off singing more songs from the likes of Jesse Harris or others, while letting her songwriting talents grow in the background. After all, Elvis was great because he had a great voice and a great interpretation style, not because of his songwriting abilities. At this point, the same applies to Norah. If she writes a great song like "Come Away With Me", then fine, include it on the CD, but the songs on this CD are, quite frankly, boring. And, yes, I've been listening to this CD off and on since its release date, but it just doesn't do it.

I haven't given up on Norah yet because I still like her and have great hopes for her, but I wish she'd realize just what it was that made her debut so great. It didn't need what I call studio-ization because the songs were great and the talent was greater. There's no need to mess with the sound here for radio-friendliness, just let the talent shine & choose great songs, no matter who they're written by, and she'd be fine.

That doesn't mean that she has to keep on doing the same things--I certainly encourage growth in music, but just realize where the greatness currently lies: her singing.