Review of The Girl In The Other Room by Diana Krall
Sunday Times, 2004-04-11
- Clive Davis

DIANA KRALL
The Girl in the Other Room
Verve 9862063

DIANA KRALL’s bank manager — and an awful lot of her fans — would be happy to see her continue to turn out string-laden ballad albums. It’s to the Canadian singer-pianist’s credit that she is striking out in a new direction, with a little help from new husband, Elvis Costello. Krall has often talked about how she spent part of her youth listening to Peter Frampton: this is not a rock album by any means, but the sultry covers of Joni Mitchell’s Black Crow and Tom Waits’s Temptation are a sign that she is eager to spread her wings. Her version of Costello’s Almost Blue is a beauty too, although the half of the disc devoted to new material co-written with him is a little too self-consciously hip. If this is the first instalment of a new career, however, the next step should be even more intriguing. Two stars CLIVE DAVIS