Everyone's favorite jazz vocalist of today, Diana Krall is tackling new territory on her new album The Girl in the Other Room. On all of her previous releases, Krall has just been the voice and piano player, but never the songwriter. But her recent marriage to Elvis Costello has seemed to spark an interest in the songwriting department. Here Krall and Costello co-write half an album's worth of material scattered along with a handful of covers. Let's start with the covers first. Krall knows where her bread and butter is, and she makes sure that she feeds her fan base full of great tunes like Mose Allison's "Stop This World," and an inspired cover of Tom Waits' "Temptation." The best cover though has got to be her up tempo rendition of Chris Smither's "Love Me Like A Man." Oddly enough though the covers you think would work the best actually don't. Her rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow" feels sloppy at best, and the real headscratcher is how she could possibly cover her own husbands "Almost Blue" and sound completely lost, it's definitely the worst of the bunch.

Which leads us to the other half of the album that is co-written by the happy couple. Now, I can understand wanting to work with your significant other. Many have tried, and have been extremely successful. Look at Ike and Tina Turner or Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan from Yo La Tengo and you'll see what I mean. But here, it feels like Krall has been left by the wayside in order for Costello to try his hand at jazz compositions. On "I'm Coming Through" and especially "Departure Bay" Krall sounds and feels like nothing more than a voice for Costello's input. Just while reading the lyrics to these songs, a moderate Costello fan can tell that Krall probably had nothing to do with the lyrics other than dotting the i's and crossing the t's. It also doesn't help that Krall sounds completely lost in the wash of musical compositions that have been arranged here. "I've Changed My Address" and "Narrow Daylight" are almost impossible to sit though just because of the way that Krall is trying to sing them, and the fact that they're damn boring doesn't help either.

You've got to commend Krall for branching out and trying new things but The Girl in the Other Room is a real step back for her as an artist. As much as I love Costello, hopefully this collaboration is a one time affair in their new marriage.