Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings * - Counting Crows (CD)

According to the RIAA database, “August and Everything After” is still Counting Crows biggest selling album, a landmark. Fifteen years are gone and the sound of “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings” has absolutely nothing to do with their first release. In fact, in this recording they demonstrate the ability to play hard rock music vigorously without losing the melody traces. There is absolutely nothing here that resembles their low-key, banjo-based and somewhat boring style which was their most recognizable characteristic in their earlier years. Fortunately, this sonority was rapidly changed with their second release “Recovering the Satellites” back in 1995 and has been kept since then.

Adam Duritz has a unique tone of voice, which is pretty the same now as it has always been. In this record, his diverse feelings show from track to track, ranging from the sweet and slowdown “On A Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago” to the enraged “Cowboys”. Diverse albums like this are good and far away from being tiresome. Variations on the mood show more what a band has to offer. In this aspect, “August and Everything After” was of an annoying sameness and had an easy-to-depress formula which, thanks God, was not repeated with “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings”.

This album is a 4-bars, which makes it not a superb listening, but a very good one, so I really wish that this album make it to the top like the two first of their careers, because it deserves. One comment that has nothing to do with the music: if they are so self-identified and tied to the L.A. and California culture as they show in their lyrics, why putting a picture of NYC’s Empire State Building in the album cover? Seems to me that a Golden Gate Bridge or, even better, a Hollywood Sign picture would suit best…

If you don’t mind buying a DRM-protected digital download, the iTunes version contains two bonus tracks and a special video.