Kicking off with an epic eight-and-a-half-minute-long tribute to New Jersey’s Palisades amusement Park and a lament to forgotten friendships, the Counting Crows seventh studio album intentionally invokes the spirit and sound of Seventies rock. The opening track has high aspirations with its triumphant horns, confident piano chords, shore setting and coming of age theme clearly paying homage to Bruce Springsteen’s early work, most obviously the Born to Run album.
Tearing away across time, states and continents, and evoking the bands of a highly romanticised era, Counting Crows map the geography of youth with all their usual brio and haunting lyricism. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Sweet Home Alabama" gets a nod in "Scarecrow", the melody of Kansas’ "Dust in the Wind" pops up at the start of "God of Ocean Tides" and even Cheap Trick and Styx get waved heartily in to this celebration of camaraderie and life on the road via "Elvis Went to Hollywood".
A rich blend of gloomy stirring, anthems and chipper tunes with a familiar feel delivers an instant connection for fans of their output, with Adam Duritz revisiting lyrics from their 1993 debut album August and Everything After. Towards the end of the album in "John Appleseed’s Lament", the opening words, “I stepped out the front door” almost match the start of Round Here, eloquently encapsulating the circular nature of life and how we are formed by the past. But here a lively New York state of mind (much of the album was written at Duritz’s Greenwich Village loft) underpins the longing and sadness. Duritz also delivers quality lyrics – “Now living in smiles is better you say, we carry the burdens of all of our days”, he reflects on the final track, "Possibility Days".
This one is for the dreamers, the eternal travellers and anyone feeling a little lost. A nourishing journey across Oklahoma, Baltimore, New Orleans and even London’s Leicester Square filled with blues, soothing guitar and a gratifying sense of hope and rejuvenation.
Overleaf: watch the music video for "Pallisades Park"