Counting Crows - 'Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings'

“This is a list of what I should’ve been but I’m not” goes the first line of the chorus to “Cowboys,” one of 14 new songs on Counting Crows’ Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings. It’s been nearly six years since the group’s last album, the somewhat directionless Hard Candy, and this line and its accompanying music are important because they assert the following: Frontman Adam Duritz is still really good at writing really depressing songs, Counting Crows are a great American rock band even though everyone thinks they’re sad bastards and Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is much better than a lot of people will probably give credit.

The Crows deserve recognition for taking a double-album concept (fun Saturdays and reflective, hung-over Sundays) and trimming it down to a single cohesive disc. Pixies producer Gil Norton handles the six “Saturday” songs, and he delivers a raw sound just like he did on 1996’s Recovering the Satellites. This first half captures the various emotions one can have when partying at night—euphoria, hedonism and, lest we forget that alcohol is a depressant, a whole lot of melancholy. Musically, this part makes for some good drinking tunes.

Bookends “1492” and “Cowboys” are manic anthems. “1492” is the sound of Duritz binge-drinking his way through an identity crisis. He knocks his own dreads in the song’s opening lines—“I’m a Russian Jew American /Impersonating African Jamaican”—before dissolving into a blur of drugs and clubs. Crazed and unstable, he calls himself both the king of everything and nothing. Coupled with the lyrics are some searing, crunching guitars, making the song loud enough to keep it from depressing the crap out of me.

“Cowboys” is just as frenzied, although this time Duritz goes from flailing for self-worth to defining himself through what he isn’t. Yet again, though, its guitar squalor saves the listener. Thank your local deity for the triple guitar shot of Dan Vickrey, David Immerglück and David Bryson. Charles Gillingham’s piano playing adds some nice twinkling texture as well.

It’s not all sad sackery though. Goofy blues romper “Los Angeles” is a fun little tune which Duritz penned with Ryan Adams and Dave Gibbs. “We gonna get drunk, find us some skinny girls and go streetwalking,” Duritz says at its end. Turns out he’s a fan of L.A., saying that it’s “a really good place to find yourself a taco.” Other tracks like “Sundays” and “Insignificant” have more of a dreamy pop vibe circa This Desert Life, while “Hanging Tree” is a straight up radio rocker: “They say ‘Good evening’/When they don’t know what to say” goes one memorable line from “Hanging Tree.” In a way, these first six songs are like Recovering the Satellites in miniature—Duritz flails around his dizzy life, trying to find a way to be comfortable with himself and other people (especially women).

The “Sunday” portion is much quieter by comparison. Produced by Brian Deck, perhaps best known for helming Modest Mouse’s The Moon and Antarctica, it’s pretty solid in its’ somber contemplation, and not nearly as awkward of a shift from the brazen first half as one might think. In fact, the two halves aren’t too dissimilar. “Anyone But You” and “Come Around” both favor the atmospheric pop heard earlier while closer “Come Around” and single “You Can’t Count on Me” are mid-energy rockers like “Hanging Tree.”

“On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago” is just as raw as “1492,” but for a completely different reason. Stripped to just piano and Duritz’s voice, there’s plenty of room for reflection and sadness. Duritz can get pretty verbose too, so it’s shocking when all he has left to say to an unnamed lost love is “Come back to me,” over and over. Simple, understated and effective.

But while I’m a total fanboy for Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, and Counting Crows in general, I have to point out flaws when they appear. Duritz is known for having certain lyrical images in his songs like lions, the color grey, angels and girls named Maria and Elizabeth. Some of those images come back on this record, but on “When I Dream of Michelangelo,” Duritz goes from drawing from his stylistic cache to ripping himself off. The title and its chorus come from the bridge to Recovering the Satellites’ “Angels of the Silences,” and it’s sad that Duritz has to recycle these lines. The album would have been fine at 13 tracks; I don’t know why the band chose to so blatantly plagiarize an older work.

Also detracting from the work are the moments when Duritz brings up historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Abraham Lincoln mid-song. Yes, the imagery is vivid, and it fills space. But it also interrupts his narrative without adding too much. And while we’re at it, “Los Angeles” is either really funny or really annoying, depending on your mood.

Minus one song and a few lines here and there, though, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is a brilliant rock album, announcing a welcome return by Counting Crows. The band is in top form, and Duritz is still a master of emoting and scenery. He might not know who he is anymore, but I know who I am: a guy who’s going to fancy dance to this record.