Norah Jones, “Visions.”

Norah Jones’ newest album, Visions, swings the pendulum from darkness back to light. If 2020’s Pick Me Up Off the Floor was the dust on the windowsill clouding the view, Visions is the sun beaming through.

Hopeful and contemplative, these 12 tracks make the malaise of the pandemic feel like a distant memory. Pianist and singer-songwriter Jones maintains her understated style, but the album could hardly be called subdued.

It’s on “I Just Wanna Dance” where Jones’ exuberance comes through the strongest. The languor in her voice perfectly melds with the relentless groove of baritone sax. The song has few words, but the memorable hook feels impactful.

“Now heaven looks like a fancy restaurant/ And I’m finally alive,” she sings. Ever wry, Norah Jones delivers whimsical lyrics like these with aplomb. That’s hard to do without sounding corny, but she pulls it off.

The lyrics on the retro album opener “All This Time” alternate between wittiness and sensitivity. “Stay with me … I’ll make it easy,” she sings convincingly, the slow and slurry song drawing you into her world where birds quite literally chirp in the background. Piano keys smush up against one another, teetering toward discordance.

On “Staring at the Wall,” triads of piano chords beautifully support Jones’ vocals. She sounds a bit jaded and strained, yet still pleasant due to her incredible tone quality. This song has a completely different feel from the rest of the album, leaning twangier and more rootsy.

The reverb-laden “Running” is also unexpected. Jones has said that that the majority of the ideas she envisioned for the album “came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and ‘Running’ was one of them where you’re half asleep and kind of jolted awake.” It’s an apt description.

Visions knits together elements from country, jazz, folk and pop. The mélange of genres is all part of what makes this album—and Norah Jones’ music in general—so enjoyable to take in. This extends to the way Jones explores the different kinds of melodies she can play on the piano. It’s as if she and her collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Leon Michels, have unlocked an intuitive harmonic language. The production is concise yet still feels improvisational. This pairs well with the lyrics, which sound like a stream of consciousness. Visions is two minds in conversation with one another.

On “I’m Awake,” Jones’ velvety voice immediately draws you into her reality. The song starts out bright and playful. She wonders if we “Remember when I lost control/ I lost my soul.” Her laughter’s captured in the recording and there’s a sense that she isn’t taking herself so seriously. By the end, the layered vocals and augmented chords take us into a dreamy fantasy.

Similarly, “Alone With My Thoughts” has a hazy quality to it. Its subtle sound shifts sound like a sultry lullaby. It’s a love song, to be sure.

While love is a recurring theme, closure is the main subject that bubbles to the surface. While “Paradise” is full of catchy hooks, its subject matter is about longing, regret and acceptance. “Got to let you go again/ I never wanted this to end,” Norah Jones sings.

She negotiates with closure on the title track, an intimately vulnerable song that ends with a goodbye.

“Queen of the Sea” has a thumping, bluesy rhythm that grounds the song. I imagined waves pounding against a ship. Pedal steel accompanies her as she sings, ”You made a mess out of me/ But I’m finally free.”

“On My Way” is free and easy, too, with more birdsong.

“Solitude makes me rude,” Jones asserts, before adding that “In time we all laugh and play/ I’m on my way.” After a small dose of melancholia, the song turns upbeat with production that’s something to behold. It’s like a beam of light ascending.