Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (CD)

• Category:  Music  »  Rock & Pop  »  Alternative
• Format: CD
• Release Date: March 25, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Geffen Records (USA)
• UPC: 602517499850
• WAPI (Tower ID): 111503164
• Average Customer Review:    (2 customer reviews)
• Tower.com Sales Rank: #25 in Music (See Top 100 Music Bestsellers)
• #16 in Rock & Pop (See Top 100 Rock & Pop Bestsellers)
• #1 in Alternative (See Top 100 Alternative Bestsellers)

• DISC 1 for Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (CD) Album
• 1   1492
• 2   Hanging Tree
• 3   Los Angeles
• 4   Sundays
• 5   Insignificant
• 6   Cowboys
• 7   Washington Square
• 8   On Almost Any Sunday Morning
• 9   When I Dream Of Michelangelo
• 10   Anyone Buy You
• 11   You Can't Count On Me
• 12   Le Ballet D'or
• 13   On A Tuesday In Amsterdam Long Ago
• 14   Come Around

•  [Counting Crows - Official Site ] 
  
•  [Counting Crows - Myspace] 
  
•  [Counting Crows - Wikipedia Entry ] 
  
•  [Counting Crows - Music at LAST.fm] 
  

Blender (Magazine) (p.78) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "It's dark and combustible....The disc's SUNDAY MORNINGS half...is more acoustic, quieter, reflective."

Counting Crows: David Immergluck (vocals, guitar, guitars, pedal steel guitar, dobro, tres, mandola, mandolin, bass guitar); David Bryson (vocals, guitar, guitars, banjo, mandola, mandolin, toy piano); Dan Vickrey (vocals, guitar, guitars, banjo); Charles Gillingham (vocals, harmonica, piano, toy piano, Fender Rhodes piano, harmonium, chamber organ, Hammond b-3 organ, chamberlin, Mellotron, vibraphone, glockenspiel); Millard Powers (vocals, upright bass, bass guitar); Jim Bogios (vocals, drums, maracas, tambourine, sleigh bell); Adam Duritz (vocals).

More than five years after 2002's HARD CANDY, Counting Crows finally returned with a full-length studio follow-up, SATURDAY NIGHTS & SUNDAY MORNINGS. Divided into a rocked-out first half (SATURDAY NIGHTS) and a mellow second part (SUNDAY MORNINGS), the album also features different producers for each section, with frontman Adam Duritz and company wisely selecting Gil Norton (who helmed RECOVERING THE SATELLITES) for the former tunes and Brian Deck (renowned for his work with Iron & Wine and Modest Mouse) for the latter songs.

Often recalling SATELLITES with its tightly wound intensity, the SATURDAY side of the record is embodied by "Cowboys," which features the ever-passionate Duritz at his most urgent, backed by the band's searing triple-guitar attack and driving rhythms. On the other end of the sonic spectrum is "On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago," a spare, piano-led number that casts Duritz's perpetual sense of yearning into a subdued moment of nostalgic melancholy. While the album's explicitly dual nature may not result in a dynamic mix, it makes for two impressively sustained moods that can easily be broken by hitting "shuffle."

Counting Crows - Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

The Counting Crows don’t seem like they were quite sure what to do with this release so they solved the query by doing it all. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings explores bouts of rage riffing guitar work as well as balladic interludes all the while entertaining Adam Duritz’s wailing lyrics. As per usual his brand of pop-grim vocals provides a ying for the yang in cases like “You Can’t Count on Me” where the instrumental effort may just be too happy.

We can’t say that the ensemble has ventured into unchartered territory because they just haven’t. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is a perfect reflection of their run till now possibly with a few crunchier riffs that we wouldn’t have found adjacent “Mr. Jones” or “Colorblind”.

The album is ultimately classic Counting Crows whether you choose to hear it or not. However as I mentioned the guitar does perk up more than we’ve heard from the group in the past and Duritz manages to push his troubled voice to the limit giving us his brand of raspy lyrical turmoil.

The Counting Crows come out fighting on this one and duke it out using inspiration that may or may not only be available, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.

Favorite Songs - “You Can’t Count on Me”, “When I Dream of Michelangelo.”

- Danny”LIT”, Tower Pulse – 04/03/2008

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