What can you say about the new Counting Crows? You can put it in several ways, but in the end you’ll end up with only one conclusion: this is the new Counting Crows. Now what do you think I mean by that? Just what it says, really. The Masters of Mellow have made another album and it is just as you’d expect it to be. And now you can either appreciate that or disapprove of it, it just is a fact. But then again, the Crows never have been a band that changes styles with every new album, so most of the fans will not expect them to anymore. Which leaves only one option: luckily they have not changed. The new album is yet again filled with the typical chill-out-on-a-hot-afternoon sound we all know. How do they manage to get away with that? They are The Crows, that’s why. Somehow you even let them play along until the end of the album. And that has a LOT to do with the chilly vibe in their music. Now, when I listen to the album carefully, I can figure out what exactly is their secret. Come to think of it, listening carefully to this is quite a challenge, because you get the urge to lay back and relax the very moment you put it on; definitely not listening to each song individually. But hey, this reviewing gig is not just for fun, so for the sake of this review I have listened to it carefully. My conclusion is that they manage to keep the album entertaining because of the variations in song texture. These songs are actually different from one another.

How? Well, Adam Duritz and his men have somehow found every possible variation to “chilly song” there is; almost as if they have opened a sound dictionary, looked up “R” of “Relaxed” and then made a song according to every explanation they found, in alfabetical order or not. So the songs do vary in tempo, structure and “activeness”. Some songs are even more chilled-out than others. The most laid-back is probably number 6, “Miami”, although there are a few other songs that come in a close second. But this song, it sounds just like those classic late night in a bar kind of things. Just when the bartender has put all his chairs up, someone else is sweeping the floor and then he comes up to you to say you really have to go now. If you get what I mean. The next song is a special kind of thing as well. “Butterfly In Reverse”, is a three-quarter waltz song thing, which sounds like it just escaped from a Disney movie soundtrack. Not kidding! Although it could have been a “Sound Of Music”-like movie, but wasn’t that Disney as well? Who cares, you get it.
And the album just trickles on like that, never out of bounds, just one relaxer after another. First like this, then like that, but it‘ll never scare you or shake your senses, which is just the thing that makes it so difficult to listen to the entire album without dozing off. Now you decide whether this is a compliment or an insult.