3.5/5
Butter Days
How sweet it is! Zach Galifiankis may have the best line when it comes to how old Jerry Seinfeld is getting 'Between Two Ferns' ("counting crow's feet"), but Adam Duritz and his band are by all means no joke. And they're back for all those who dropped off them and forgot classics like 'August and Everything After', 'Recovering The Satellites' and 'This Desert Life' (what a big-three to start a career). As a matter of fact, they've been back. In 2021, they gave us the 'Butter Miracle, Suite One' EP, and this was originally meant to be, 'Suite Two'. Spearheaded by super singles 'Spaceman In Tulsa' and 'Under The Aurora' complete with COVID music videos, featuring band studio sessions and Durtiz zoomed in, all by himself (what a time, what a time). Now, on the same New Music Friday that Outkast's Andre 3000 follows his 'New Blue Sun' flute album with a '7 Piano Sketches' EP, we get the full LP of Counting's 'Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets'.
Backed up at the end, the previously released, 'The Tall Grass', 'Elevator Boots', 'Angel Of 14th Street' and 'Bobby and the Rat-Kings' all make it back for this nine-track album that spreads the butter further on the toast. Like a 'Still Blooming' Jeff Goldblum and his Mildrid Snitzer Orchestra said to Sarah Silverman about leaving it out of the fridge overnight to soften for the perfect spread. Yes, for our umpteenth reference, we can't get enough of all that. Just like we adore this album artwork and our muse, lying across the buttercups, with a face of heavily buttered bread (my kind of woman), like the Japanese superhero for kids, Anpanman. For those who don't know, this is a guy whose face is bread. And if you thought that was weird, his friends eat said face when they need a power up (wait...WHAT?!). That needs a parental advisory, this album, on the other hand, should probably come with a cholesterol warning. Yet you'll have your fill when you come to the 'Virginia Through The Rain' album pick that is classic Counting Crows. So much so, you might just hear it on the forthcoming fourth season of 'The Bear'.
San Francisco's Bay Area's very own, who we're sure inspired the classic show Counting Cars, roll back into town 'With Love, From A-Z', to the 'Boxcars' that keep this new material tuned into your car radio. They have enough sessions here, not to mention the classics (like 'Shrek') for the tour they're about to embark on, across America, supported by the reunion of the one and only Jersey boys, Brian Fallon and his Gaslight Anthem. Here, Duritz, David Bryson, Charlie Gillingham, Dan Vickrey, David Immerglück, Jim Bogios and Millard Powers make good on a real extended play, for their first album in a decade and a year (after 2014's 'Somewhere Under Wonderland'). It's been a long time, but this butter to have loved, complete suite is what you've been waiting for. The eighth wonder of this roots rock spreads. Just like Adam sings on 'Spaceman', "I'm a painkiller, and I'm a caterpillar/They can't break you, man (Yeah, they can't break you apart)/Another well-nigh butterfly found on a bus out of town/Turning into a motherf#####g rock and roll star." There's nothing like them stone the crows lyrics from Duritz. And after all this time, round here. All the Saturday nights and Sunday mornings under sunshine, Adam is still a rock and roll legend, you mothers. Now, how's that for a miracle? TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Spaceman In Tulsa', 'Virginia Through The Rain', 'Angel Of 14th Street'.
Spread This: Counting Crows - 'Hard Candy'
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