Counting Crows

On their breakthrough song Mr Jones, Adam Duritz sang about “Everybody wants to be big stars” only for that to happen in super quick time. Months after their debut album August And Everything After was released they were on the front of Rolling Stone, being described as possibly the biggest rock band in the world. Rather than embrace this new found fame as Mr Jones had so pertinently described, Duritz struggled to cope.

His issues with stardom and the attention it brought were made worse by having to deal with depersonalization disorder, which affects his sense of reality. That personality issue explains many of his intriguing and beguiling lyrics and also the length of time it takes for the band to release an album. This is studio album number six, almost 20 years after August arrived.

Given that relatively minimal output, it is disappointing that we are presented with a covers album. Duritz explains that it is the record they wanted to make right now but many fans would have been waiting for new material, especially after a largely coolly received last outing on Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings. This is their first independent release and it would have been braver to go with new material.

Nevertheless, what this does offer is an insight into the type of songs that influences the band and there is an interesting spread from Bob Dylan and Fairport Convention to Gram Parsons and Teenage Fanclub. In fact the latter are not the only Scottish band featured, with a surprising appearance of Coming Around by Travis, which is offered a similar going over to Fran Healy’s original. The Faces’ Ooh La La also gets a straight rendition but where the band really impress are on the lesser known songs.

Romany Rye’s Untitled (Love Song) is only two years old but is given new life here as is Sordid Humor’s Jumping Jesus. Sordid Humor tracks have often featured in Counting Crows live sets and the band sounds like they own the song. Return of the Grevious Angel (Parsons) and Start Again (Teenage Fanclub) are also impressive. The presence of several tracks the band have already recorded is frustrating, with Four White Stallions, originally included on their excellent Hard Candy album.

Overall this is the sound of a band having a great time and doing what they want to do. But as Peter Gabriel once said, it is not always a good idea to let creative people have total control. For fans of the band’s brilliant storytelling there will be a sense of frustration at what can only be seen as a filler release. They can only hope that given Crows’ new record company independence, new material will not be long in arriving.