\n(Editor’s Note: This review first appeared in the November 12,
\n1996 edition of<\/i> On The Town
\nmagazine.)<\/i><\/p>\n
Okay, full disclosure time. No, I’m not related to any of the
\nCounting Crows (at least that I’m aware of). I don’t know their
\nmanager, have never worked for their record label or producer and
\nam secure in the knowledge that any kind of veiled grovel for
\nconcert tickets would be laughed off. My disclosure is simply this:
\nI did not approach the job of listening to and reviewing this album
\nin an objective, detached manner. This would be impossible,
\ninasmuch as I believe that Counting Crows vocalist\/leader Adam
\nDuritz is well on the way to proving himself to be the premier rock
\nand roll songwriter of his generation.<\/p>\n
Evidence the first: from the band’s 1993 debut,
\nAugust and Everything After<\/i>, “A Murder of One”-in this
\nreviewer’s opinion, probably the most riveting, agonizingly
\nbeautiful rock song of the ’90s (a hundred listens and I still get
\nchills as Duritz pleads with his battered friend-and himself-to
\n“change” at the close). Evidence the second: the rest of that
\nremarkable, acclaimed album. Evidence the third: three full years
\nlater,
\nRecovering the Satellites<\/i>, as strong and sure and dynamic
\nand literate a follow-up album as I’ve heard. The personal trials
\nof fame and consequent writer’s block Duritz suffered through
\nfollowing the big splash made by August appear to have been
\nvanquished quite thoroughly.<\/p>\n
Deriving their bluesy, rootsy sound from such classic rock
\ngiants as Van Morrison and The Band, the Crows, their sound
\ntoughened up a bit this time with the addition of a second
\nguitarist, provide the appealing musical underpinnings to Duritz’s
\nbrilliant flights of lyricism. There’s the sadly compelling
\n“Another Horsedreamers’ Blues” (“Margery’s wingspan’s all feathers
\nand coke cans \/ And TV dinners and letters she won’t send”); the
\nbitter ruminations on fame “Have You Seen Me Lately” and
\n“Recovering the Satellites” (“All anybody really wants to know
\nis… when you gonna come down”); and, in the country-rock
\ninflected “Daylight Fading,” a sharp summation of the trials of
\nwriter’s block (“all the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into
\nfear”).<\/p>\n
Duritz’s lyrics, sung in a crackling, edgy voice, are full of
\nrain and departures and sleepless nights, of longing to be loved
\nand lovers who long to be elsewhere. The album’s capper, though,
\ncomes in “A Long December,” a ringing, densely melodic ballad
\noffering a single ray of hope: “The smell of hospitals in winter \/
\nAnd the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls \/ All
\nat once you look across a crowded room \/ To see the way that light
\nattaches to a girl … And it’s been a long December and there’s
\nreason to believe \/ Maybe this year will be better than the
\nlast.”<\/p>\n
\nRecovering the Satellites<\/i> offers abundant hope for every
\nadmirer of the Crows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5864],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37933","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-counting-crows","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37933","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=37933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37933"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}