Lolz. Okay, that didn’t work too well. I think I’ll try to stay away from the grand multi-day, multi-entry stories from now on and stick with posting random musings.

On today’s menu: Counting Crows’ new studio album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.

I’m a big Crows fan. Have been since my high school roommate—a borderline obsessive fan at the time—introduced me to August and Everything After. Their music conjures memories of certain periods and events in my life like music from no other artist. I am not, however, one of the religiously loyal lunatics (they would piss me off if they didn’t scare the shit out of me—in the end it’s just music, people) following the band that believes it above criticism. Now that we’ve established I’m not going to tell you how unbelievably amazing this album is and that you’re a twit for not being able to appreciate it, we can get to the review…

Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is, on the whole, a good-sounding album from start to finish. For fans, I think it will inspire a feeling of familiarity, like these songs are ‘old friends,’ even if one’s you haven’t kept in touch with. Their fourth studio album, Hard Candy, took a good many listens for me to get attached to it (though I’ve come to enjoy much of that album), and This Desert Life still leaves me mostly cold but for a few bright spots. But the listening experience of SN&SM is enjoyable from the off, and that’s high praise from someone who generally can’t stand but two or three songs from most albums the first time I listen to them.

The album is broken into two parts based on theme and style: Saturday Nights, and, predictably, Sunday Mornings. Saturday Nights is very clearly inspired by rock ‘n roll and early 90s alternative. The sound of Aerosmith and the Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, REM, and Nirvana, and I’m sure many other familiar bands in those genres appear in the tapestry of Saturday Nights. It’s a nice changeup for the band from the pop and piano songs of Hard Candy, the experimentation of This Desert Life, and the dark rage that tainted Recovering the Satellites. Collectively, I would say that musically-speaking Saturday Nights is some of their best work since August and Everything After.

I’m a bit indifferent to the lyrics and themes of the Saturday Night songs. You could say it’s about living it up on Saturday nights, but more appropriately it’s about Adam (the band?) getting fucked up on drugs and alcohol and banging chicks all over the world basically. Some of the songs seem to lament the fact that his life has taken him in this direction. To be honest, I find this whole theme in the band’s songs to be pretty tired by now. Look, we got that you were a wealthy, famous musician two albums ago Adam, no need to beat us over the head with it. For a guy who professes to hate what his wealth and fame as brought him, he sure loves to sing about it….often. It wouldn’t hurt to get a new shtick from time to time.

As far as individual songs go, “Los Angeles” is the most immediately appealing of the bunch. A chorus that feels inspired by Aerosmith’s “Pink” is really the highlight of the song, but the instrumentation really works well for the rest of the song, until the rather silly ending. Adam’s voice is integrated pretty well with the music, a huge bonus for a song that would have been easily yelled through. Actually the album as a whole offers some of Adam’s best singing since August and Everything After. He can sing (not great, but for the style of music the band plays it _can_ work well) but he adopted yelling and talking with Recovering the Satellites and sing-song beginning with This Dessert Life—at least in the studio versions…the live versions of many of the same songs sound infinitely better because, in part, he actually sings them. There’s a good deal of “vintage” Adam to be found in this album. Anyway, parts of “1492” work, “Cowboys” is a pretty solid throwback to August and Everything After-era Crows, and “Hanging Tree” has a catchy chorus.

Sunday Mornings’ songs are more subtle, primarily based around the piano and/or slow guitar, though in places you can find some Beatles flavor actually. Not to say that there is a lack of variety, but some will undoubtedly find it repetitious and boring. Public Service Announcement: do not listen to the Sunday Mornings portion of the album while driving home late at night after a long day. This is good music to fall asleep to (not necessarily because it’s boring, but it has the effect of letting your energy and frustration ease out of you). The music is generally not as strong as the Saturday Nights songs, but Adam’s voice stands out a bit more, and since he’s on his game in this album, we get some rather _nice_ songs in the bunch. “A Tuesday in Amsterdam” channels “Raining In Baltimore” and their first single from the album, “You Can’t Count On Me,” while not being one of the more immediately likeable songs, is very catchy on subsequent listens. The gem here, though, is “I Dream Of Michelangelo.” It doesn’t compare to “Los Angeles” or “Cowboys” but it’s a good “Crow’s song.” The themes of Sunday Mornings revolve around the regret or apologies made after waking up following a night of living it up. It would seem to be depressing, but rather than being steeped in self-loathing, in some ways they reflect the release one feels from dealing with the consequences of one’s actions

Overall the balance and synergy between the singing and music on Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is some of the strongest we’ve seen from Counting Crows since August. The lyrics/themes are not terribly inspiring relative to much of their other work, but I suppose one takes the good with the bad. The album represents a respectable effort by the band from start to finish, one which fans will embrace and casual listeners can appreciate.

7.5/10

My final complaint about the album involves the exclusion of the song “Suffocate.” The live version from their “Launching the Satellites” concert is a bit too “yell-y” but a well-conceived studio version of this song would have been one of the album’s highlights. Alas, frontman Adam Duritz hates the song, so we may never see it on their officially released albums. :'(