This package includes a bonus DVD featuring music videos for "Thinking About You," "Until The End" and "Sinkin' Soon" plus an interview with Norah. Anyone who thinks Norah Jones has been missing since the release of her 2004 sophomore album just hasn't been looking in the right place. The sultry singer, who won America's heart (and five Grammy Awards) with her bluesy jazz debut (Come Away With Me) in 2002, hasn't fallen off the map. She's just traveled in new directions.

In the past three years, Jones has appeared on albums with Amos Lee and the Foo Fighters; collaborated with Ray Charles -- something that earned her another pair of Grammys -- and provides piano and vocals for the country music act The Little Willies. If that isn't diverse enough, she also regularly performs with a New York glam band and raised eyebrows last year when she joined Mike Patton for the racy duet "Sucker" on his Peeping Tom project.

That might leave one wondering just where Jones's musical loyalties lie. On Not Too Late, her third release on the Blue Note label, she answers that question. No longer the starry-eyed dreamer, she uses all of her musical dabbling to craft a solid but sedate disc. For the first time, Jones emerges as primary songwriter for her material, writing or co-writing all 13 tracks. It's an interesting glimpse beyond the dreamy lounge pop that marked her first album.

Much of Not Too Late is filled with a sense of longing, beginning with the wistful "Wish I Could." The song feels a bit like a smoothed-over Springsteen tune, filled with visual imagery of a woman who misses a man who has gone off to war. Complicating the matter is the fact that the soldier belongs to a friend of hers. In a beautifully sparse arrangement, she tries to let go of her feelings -- but fails. Jones still is using the same instruments -- her piano and her voice -- but she doesn't fight to set the soothing romantic stage that made her famous.

The mood changes for "Sinkin' Soon," which has a vamped-up cabaret feel to it. The political message is close to the surface and the song takes on a carnival-like feel as she sings about impending doom. It's a far cry from her torch songs, but Jones is completely comfortable in the new territory. She takes listeners there gently, never allowing them to feel alienated by her musical wanderings.

Jones imbues the disc with the musical flavors she has experimented with in her side projects; "Until The End" hints at some bluesy gospel inclinations; "Broken" has the slightest bit of country twang to it. Anyone looking for Jones to repeat herself will be most pleased with "Thinking About You," a sexy love song about letting go. It hearkens back to the smoky sensuality of her debut, yet has a more buoyant feel.

The political references implied on "Sinkin' Soon" surface completely on "My Dear Country," a song in which she claims Election Day has replaced Halloween as the scariest day of the year. It's a gently rolling song that has a lilting feel as it questions the competency of our country's leadership.

Given that sentiment, it's hard to tell if "Wake Me Up," the song that follows it, is about romance or politics. Regardless, the music has a light sweetness that tends to be soothing, even when the lyrics feel disturbed. And that consistent sweetness makes whatever Jones is dishing out go down easy.