I have been a fan of Diana Krall for some time, first discovering her in the mid 90's when she released "Love Scenes," and quickly buying each new album. While I have always been impressed with Krall's interpretation of the Great American Songbook, this album is a bold step for an artist that has a strong following as a singer of standards.

Thank God that Krall is an artist not afraid to take risks. "The Girl in the Other Room" is a step away from the standards and into a new field. With half the album's songs co-written by her husband Elvis Costello (a genius in his own right), this album brings her music into a new phase that we can hope she will nuture and build upon. The covers, including an excellent version of Jonie Mitchell's "Black Crow" and Costello's "Almost Blue," are a segue into the landscapes of loss, heartbreak, and hope that the original songs bring us. Especially poignant are "Narrow Daylight," a song about rebirth from a time of darkness, and "Departure Bay," in which we can hear the pain in her voice as she describes the loss of her mother and the pain of not being able to spend as much time as home as she could have due to her fame and travelling.

Diana Krall may have made her name as a fantastic interpreter of standards, but this album shows her as an artist in her own right, an artist that can tackle both contemporary songs and original material with a fire and vision that few artists today have. Most welcome especially is her masterful piano playing which has been put behind the luch orchestrations of the last two albums. Diana Krall has grown as a bandleader, a musician, and a songwriter, and I can only hope that this new direction will last and grow into the future. Most highly reccommended.