Counting Crows is one of those bands with such a distinct
\napproach to music that people generally end up either loving them
\nor hating them. For me, lead singer\/chief composer Adam Duritz’s
\npoetic lyrics (or is it lyrical poetry?) have always had the power
\nto overcome any other doubts I may have had. But the band’s fourth
\nstudio album, the sweet and difficult
\nHard Candy<\/i>, doesn’t make the equation any easier to
\nsolve.<\/p>\n
The first time I listened to this disc, I thought it was the
\nbest thing the band had recorded. It seemed like everything had
\ncome together — the arrangements are varied and complex, the
\nlyrics sharp as ever, and the entire album feels polished and
\nfinished, with all musical details attended to and real variety in
\nthe arrangements. It seemed producer Steve Lillywhite (of U2 and
\nDave Matthews fame) had given the group the final nudge they need
\nto become a fully realized rock and roll band possessed of all the
\nskills necessary to rock with both passionate fervor and mature
\nprecision.<\/p>\n
And that still sounds like the case to me on the early part of
\nthis disc. The kick-off title track truly is one of the best cuts
\nthey’ve ever recorded, a ringing piece of Byrds\/Petty jangle-rock
\nwith a lyric that will hit home for anyone who’s ever felt
\nnostalgic in the present for a relationship that caused them pain
\nin the past. Following it with the sarcastically upbeat “American
\nGirls” is a startling move for a band whose bread and butter is
\nslow, heart-rending laments, but it works, and there’s plenty of
\nthe latter down the road.<\/p>\n
A little farther along, Duritz’s career-long obsession with his
\nown insomnia continues in the simply gorgeous “Goodnight LA,” in
\nwhich he finally seems to get to the root of the problem: “And what
\nbrings me down now is love \/ Cause I can never get enough.” Not an
\neasy thing to confess, but he does it with complete conviction.
\nOther highlights include the supple melodies and rich harmonies of
\nmidtempo numbers like “If I Could Give All My Love -or- Richard
\nManuel Is Dead” (a track whose arrangement appropriately smacks of
\nThe Band) and the steady-building, multi-layered “Up All
\nNight.”<\/p>\n
The real test, though, comes in the middle of the disc, where
\nthe band attempts several experiments. The use of a string section
\nand exotic percussion on the slow-building “Miami” works well,
\ngiving the song a strong trajectory that sweeps you along with it.
\nBut the horns and strings on “Butterfly In Reverse” only serve to
\nunderline the basic problem: the lyric, which sees Duritz
\ncollaborating with alt.country wunderkind Ryan Adams, just doesn’t
\nwork. As a result, the whole song collapses like a balloon with a
\nslow leak.<\/p>\n
Serving as a microcosm of the entire album, “New Frontier” is a
\nsong I’ve changed my mind about twice. At first its totally
\nuncharacteristic whining ’80s synthesizer seemed so annoying it
\nnearly blocked out my appreciation of the song’s clever lyric about
\nthe superficiality of American pop culture. Then the lyric won out
\nfor awhile and I decided the synthesizer was just the right musical
\ntouch for the subject matter. Then it started annoying the hell out
\nof me again. Moral of the story: experiments can blow up in your
\nface sometimes.<\/p>\n
The last third of the album is a good news-bad news affair. It’s
\nanchored by a pair of classic Crows laments, slow, heart-rending
\nnumbers full of vivid images and brilliant twists of phrase.
\n“Carriage” and especially “Black And Blue” take you to the
\nemotional core of the Crows’ roots-confessional genre of music and
\nscore big points for the home team. The already-praised “Up All
\nNight” would have been a strong closer, but instead they finish
\nwith “Holiday In Spain,” a languorous, self-pitying track that
\nrubbed me the wrong way.<\/p>\n
Among the reasons this album sounds so much fuller than previous
\nCrows efforts is that the band, initially with one guitarist among
\nits five members, now boasts three among its seven (Dave Bryson,
\nDan Vickrey and newest member David Immergluck, formerly of Camper
\nVan Beethoven and John Hiatt’s band). It’s got to be a little tough
\non these three, trying to figure out where they fit into each song,
\nbut the variety of textures and tones they’re able to produce with
\ntheir different styles of playing is outstanding.<\/p>\n
\nHard Candy<\/i> is a fitting name for this album, given its
\nfrequent brilliance and occasional rough spots. One of the things
\nthat separates great bands from the rest of the pack, though, is
\ntheir willingness to take risks. The Crows take some here, and
\nwhile I’m not a hundred percent impressed with the results, I
\nsalute the effort. This is definitely an album worth owning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5864],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37505","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-counting-crows","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37505"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}