Counting Crows – and you’ll see why if you can be arsed to wade through all of this review – are probably the band I’ve listened to most in my life.
So, in many ways, because of that, it doesn’t feel like 11 years since their last full-length album. But it is, and “With Love, From A-Z” is perfect modern Counting Crows, if you will. That is to say, it’s unmistakably them, but with a greater emphasis on lead guitar than the debut had.
And the urgency, the almost stream-of-consciousness way that Adam Duritz sings, gives it an edge.
The songs on the second half of this were released four years ago, but one of the ones that wasn’t – emerging as a single this year – is an instant classic. One of the best songs of their career, “Spaceman in Tulsa,” is as good an example of character-based songwriting as you’ll find.
One of the only truly new songs here is “Boxcars,” a proper groover with a southern tinge. It finds “mom and dad and a couple of kids staring at the screen” and has a real bite. Perhaps the first boogie song of their career – it’s an absolute gem.
But they’ve always been a band of moods and extremes. And although the music on “Virginia in the Rain” isn’t raw, the emotions are. “Forty years of your devotion and my shame,” offers Duritz here – and you feel like you’re intruding at times.
The latest single they released off “The Complete Sweets” was “Under the Aurora.” String-drenched, set in Europe – like many of them seem to be – and searching for something to believe in.
The remaining four tracks made up “The Butter Miracle Suite One.” When I reviewed it in 2021, I said:
“One song, four songs, part one, whatever this is, ‘Butter Miracle Suite One’ is brilliant, and right up there with the finest stuff Counting Crows have ever put out.”
No word of a lie. It’s the thing I’ve listened to most in the four years since. So I don’t even know what new to say about it here.
The echoes of “Have You Seen Me Lately” in “The Tall Grass,” or the fact that the central character of “Elevator Boots” might well be all of us – still searching, trying to find Alice. Whatever secrets she holds, it really can be made better by “taking a ride on the radio dial” and finding solace “in one more show.”
“Angel of 14th Street” is more cinematic than it had appeared to me four years ago, and look – the trumpet solo is meant to make you think of all those timeless classics, and the way it builds and explodes at its end is just too good.
But not as good as “Bobby and the Rat Kings.” And those of us who “never stop wishing we were someone else” have our spokesman.
That all being said, there’s a name that hangs over this all the way through, and that’s Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. If that’s true, then this last one is Counting Crows’ version of “Jungleland.” That’s no mere hyperbole. This song is that good.
This album is that good.
Anyone who has ever read anything I’ve ever reviewed about Counting Crows has been bored by this story: back in the mid-90s, they soundtracked the world’s longest unrequited love affair. There was no happy ending. I ended up at her wedding – not to me, I’d add. Then, rather like “Mr. Jones,” me and the band didn’t talk much anymore.
Then in 2015, “Angels of the Silences” came on my iPod, and that song from their second album set me off again. And for the last ten years, they have – along with four other bands who randomly take this accolade when I feel like it – been my favourite.
I see no point in hiding this when I write about them, and it explains just why I mean it when I say this:
“The Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!” is their best album. And that means it’s been one of the best ever recorded.
Album of the last decade? It’s right here, mate.
Rating: 10/10
REVIEW: COUNTING CROWS – BUTTER MIRACLE, THE COMPLETE SWEETS! (2025)
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