Counting Crows: Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
Friday, 28 Mar 2008 12:10
Counting Crows new record is an album of two halves
Counting Crows: Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
Geffen, out March 24th 2008.
In a nutshell…
Melancholy, subdued, bluesy pop-rock.
What's it all about?
The 14-track album (15 counting the bonus song Baby, I'm A Big Star Now) is split into two themes - the Saturday Nights portion of the album is meant to be a rocking tale of drinking and a night on the town, while Sunday Mornings is a reflective, hangover-style look at the events of the previous evening.
Britain's Gil Norton - who has previously worked with the band on their sophomore album Recovering the Satellites and has also collaborated with Foo Fighters and Pixies - produced the Saturday Nights side of the album, while the eight-track Sunday Mornings is the result of a partnership with Brian Deck - who has produced albums for Iron & Wine and Modest Mouse.
Who's it by
Counting Crows made an unexpected break into the mainstream music scene in 1993 when Mr Jones - a track from their debut album August and Everything After - became a radio hit. Since that time, they have recorded four albums of additional material, released a greatest hits album (2003's Films About Ghosts) and a live disc (2006's New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall).
The band, which now has seven members, is fronted by Adam Duritz and is known for its enthusiastic live performances, which often include acoustic arrangements of album tracks. Their music has appeared on a number of film soundtracks, including Colorblind - featured in 1999's Cruel Intentions - and Accidentally In Love, which was written for the opening credit sequence in Shrek 2.
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is the group's first new-material release since the 2002 rock-pop album Hard Candy.
As an example…
"I'll wait for you where Saturday's a memory/And Sunday comes to gather me/Into the arms of God who welcome me/Because I believe, oh I believe" - Cowboys
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
More forlorn and introspective than the up-tempo pop-rock the band adopted as its post-millennium sound, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is a throwback to the band's moody 90s blues-rock style.
It is more likely to feature heavily in the playlists of die-hard Counting Crows fans than to earn new converts to the band's music.
What the others say
"Duritz is a wordy lyricist who, ironically, doesn't have much to say." - Caroline Sullivan, the Guardian
"The hair-shirt single You Can't Count on Me and the cheerily grim Hanging Tree are little masterpieces of pop craft, their arrangements and Duritz's invitingly petulant wail often echoing golden-era REM." - Will Hermes, Rolling Stone
"Rocking rip-chords and bluesy breakdowns carry expansive lyrics combining outer travelogues across the American heartland with vibrant internal monologues." - The Mirror
So is it any good?
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is a sharp departure from the band's 2002 release Hard Candy - a move which may please fans who have followed the band since the mid-1990s and alienate those who discovered Counting Crows on the soundtrack to a computer-animated sequel about swamp ogres.
The Saturday Nights portion of the album sounds like vintage Counting Crows on the first listen, particularly Hanging Tree, which juxtaposes upbeat riffs and a live sound with introspective, melancholy lyrics. But the band's inevitably more mature sound makes the so-called informality of party tracks such as Los Angeles sound forced - particularly when a drunken Duritz goes off in search of a taco on Sunset Boulevard.
However, the Sunday Mornings section of the album showcases the writer at his finest, with achingly tuneful melodies best showcased in I Dream Of Michelangelo - a title recycled from a lyric on the 1996 album Recovering the Satellites - and radio-friendly lead single You Can't Count On Me.
7.5/10
Kaitlyn Critchley
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