Counting Crows Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings CD

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."

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.

Counting Crows: David Immerglück (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); Charlie 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).

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."