Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

The first album from Counting Crows for the last five years

It is not really necessary to release new studio album every year to be a popular band. Two or three platinum ones are quite enough for stable touring during following years and even decades. In fact, many of well-knows bands practice this method. It was said not to hurt some of the rock music veterans - simply this approach really exists. It is hard to blame people for being tired from tours that may last for 12 months a year. By the way, intensive concert activity can strike not only artistic productivity but it may also be a main reason that leads to the splitting of the bands. In a word, touring may cut both ways. On the one hand you do it to be closer to your fans, on the other you keep them waiting for years to hear your new record. For the last five years multi platinum band Counting Crows hasn't recorded even a single song but at the same time they managed to supply their fans with their official concert album, best hits collection, deluxe edition of their classic album August And Everything After and initiated a file sharing site where their fans can get tones of concert bootlegs. And finally it happened! The audience can take a sigh of relief; this year Counting Crows released their long-awaited new album Saturday Nights And Sunday Mornings.

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings is having a conceptual character

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings as an album that marks the ending of a prolonged period of stagnation turned out to be sufficiently strong record. Counting Crows' fans won't be disappointed, that's for sure. The album offers excellent production and worthwhile, diverse material. Besides, it also possesses some sort of a conceptual character. The basic idea is reflected in its title – you go insane on a Saturday night party and bitterly regret about those thing you did on the following Sunday morning. As the bands leader Adam Duritz said: "It's about a flood of sin and liquor and dissolution and insanity and it's about trying to rebuild the life you wrecked in the wake of that flood". The album was separated into two parts not only thematically but also musically. The first half, which stands as a symbol of a Saturday night, consists of loud, reckless hard-rock songs while the second represents very calm acoustic numbers that express a feeling of regret and thirst of redemption.

Feelings and emotions

From a stylistic point of view the first part sounds not really typical for Counting Crows who gained recognition primarily due to their acoustically driven rock songs released in the early stage of their career. The first track 1492 is the most up-tempo, powerful, heavy and cheerful song not only on this album but, probably, in the band's entire catalogue. Hanging Tree may remind you Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Of course, this is a disputable comparison but some of these songs really contain slight grange influences. On Los Angeles the band suddenly breaks into blues-rock. In short, little by little they make you think that they have run out of original ideas. These are good songs indeed but they always remind you something else. The situation changes drastically on Washington Square, which sets the tone for the second half of the album. The acoustic part sounds really deep. The material acquires more individual character unfolding new spaces for emotions and feelings, which were drowned in loud arrangements of the first songs. As it was said earlier, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings will hardly be a disappointment for Counting Crows' old fans. It offers a sufficient extent of material, which shows both the new territories that the band is trying to embrace and the evolution of their original style.