Album Reviews

There are few things as graceless as trying to age gracefully in rock n' roll. What a welcome sound it is then to hear Counting Crows clawing and scratching in defiance from the outset on Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.

Album opener "1492"–probably the hardest rocking track in the Crows' catalog–isn't a tease, but a tone-setter for the Saturday night frenzy that follows. Divided thematically into Saturday night and the subdued Sunday morning, the album moves briskly through the first half dozen tracks. Romping through bar band anthems, familiarly jangly pop and country-tinged rock, it's an invigorating set from an invigorated band. Just don't confuse that energy with optimism. After earlier admitting that "I don’t believe in anything" ("Sundays") and "I don't want to be insignificant" ("Insignificant"), the desperation in Adam Duritz's voice is almost palpable by the time he reaches the crescendoing "Cowboys." Then, in a final burst of squealing guitars, Saturday night abruptly ends.

This is where it's all too true to life: while Saturday night is an exhilarating blur, Sunday morning is a slow and sometimes painful recovery. The harmonica and acoustic guitar of "On Almost Any Sunday Morning" is lazy cliché. Duritz used up all his words naming "On A Tuesday In Amsterdam Long Ago;" the song itself is little more than ambling piano and a whiny refrain of "come back to me." Even "Le Ballet D'Or," for all its melodic tension, loses dramatic steam by running a good minute and a half too long. And that's really the problem. It's not the songs. Most are good; at least one ("Anyone But You") is great. It's just too hard to come down from a Saturday night that ended so soon after starting with such promise.

— Mike Magnuson
04.23.08