Counting this one among their best
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Counting Crows’ seventh studio album is their first set of originals since 2008.
Source: Supplied
THIS week’s album reviews from The Courier-Mail (ratings out of five stars).
ROCK
COUNTING CROWS
Somewhere Under Wonderland (Capitol/EMI)
****
Artists are often most attached to their most recent work, so it’s not surprising when they pronounce their latest album their best ever, as Counting Crows have done with their seventh studio effort (it helps for marketing purposes too!)
In this case, it’s up against their mega-selling debut August and Everything After, which warranted a deluxe anniversary edition and a live version, along with its arguably superior follow-up, Recovering the Satellites, and a consistently strong catalogue thereafter.
So how does it stack up? It’s another solid effort, to be sure, but maybe not as strong as the band claim.
Counting Crows might be influenced by the great songsmiths, from The Band to Van Morrison, but they still have a style and tone all their own. And this time the songwriting is re-energised by an extended breather, as this is their first album of original songs in six years. Singer-songwriter Adam Duritz has recovered from writer’s block and juggled touring with songwriting (their last studio album consisted of cover versions).
Being a six-piece, Counting Crows they can imbue their songs with a rich multilayered texture or, when necessary, a stripped-down plug-and-play vibe.
The sprawling, multi-part Palisades Park opens the album, inspired by a theme park from Duritz’s youth, and takes us back to familiar August territory as his world-weary vocals commune with the ghosts of his memory, notably childhood friend Andy and their aspirations to strike out beyond their New York home.
Indeed, a recurring theme is Duritz as a nomadic soul wandering through life (Cover Up the Sun), and making transient connections along the way (Possibility Days, the sombre piano ballad that closes the album).
An infectious groove with finger-snapping and handclapping makes Earthquake Driver a compulsive toe-tapper, as the playful guitar is almost a backing singer in itself.
Dislocation combines technical guitar work with a pulsating rhythm to be the album’s centrepiece.
On their breakthrough debut album, Counting Crows had a distinct country undertone, something that’s been lost over subsequent releases. However, the country flavour is back with a vengeance on Somewhere Under Wonderland, featuring on tracks such as Scarecrow and God of Ocean Tides.
And their past several albums have each featured a straight-up pop-rock track. The latest one, Elvis Went to Hollywood, is a descendant of New Frontier from 2003’s Hard Candy.
Somewhere Under Wonderland is a little short at nine tracks. After six years’ waiting for original material it would have been nice to be rewarded with at least, say, a dozen.
Counting Crows’ best album yet? Not likely. Their best in a while? Quite possibly. A worthy addition to their already-strong back catalogue? Most definitely.
Out next Friday
John O’Brien
ROCK
BLUES PILLS
Blues Pills (Nuclear Blast)
****
As we observed with their Devil Man EP late last year, Blues Pills sound like a ’70s supergroup, as if Janis Joplin had teamed with Led Zeppelin (you could add Aretha Franklin to that equation, such is the range of Erin Larsson’s vocals). Now they’ve brought out their first long-player, featuring fresh takes on tracks Devil Man and River, along with new treats. Most songs are like a big jam session, with the power chords, killer guitar solos and smoky vocals that characterised the era. The slow-build opening of High Class Woman portends the retro rock to come, and the aptly named Ain’t No Change, replete with dramatic extended guitar breaks, illustrates how social concerns remain as timeless as the musical style: “They tap your telephone, tax the air you breathe.” Mesmerising vocals and swirling guitars lend a psychedelic edge to Jupiter, while Black Smoke’s tempo change is reminiscent of Gomez, and Gypsy is blues-rock in the tradition of The Black Crowes. Big loud ’70s rock has been all the rage recently but Blues Pills set themselves apart as masters of the craft.
John O’Brien
POP COUNTRY
LYN BOWTELL
Heart of Sorrow (Sony)
****
Lyn Bowtell has one of the best voices in Australian country with a warm, melancholy tone that brings to mind Karen Carpenter and Linda Ronstadt. That talent and her writing skills were obvious when she won the Star Maker quest in 1997. Now a veteran performer with a divorce behind her, Bowtell is making mature country-pop with deft hooks. Like fellow Australian Beccy Cole and US artists Kim Richey and Kelly Willis, this is grown-up music of considerable craft. Some of the credit here goes to producer Shane Nicholson who plays 15 instruments and surrounds the singer’s ruminations on loss and redemption with shimmering arrangements. As befits a post-divorce album, the standout tracks are the ones where the artist digs into her hurt. Both Used to You and Selfish Heart are classy pop songs that cut deep while remaining mainstream. Think Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the most profitable breakup album of all time.
David Costello
ROCK
THE ZEBRAS
Siesta (Lost and Lonesome)
****
It has been six years since this one-time Brisbane band’s last EP, and much has changed in the world of pop in that time. But one thing remains a constant: a good song can still take you far. On this third album, The Zebras have 11 of those as they deliver the most polished, consistent work of their career. The band is now based in Melbourne, where those winters no doubt bring on thoughts of warmer days: the front cover is a postcard from Cairns, the hometown of founder members Jeremy Cole and Edwina Ewins. The music has an equally warming effect, with Ewins’ vocals now pushed more upfront, sharing the space with Cole on dreamy pop-scapes like Fire Fire and Desert Island. Cole steps up as lead vocalist on the sublime First & Last, guitar jangle comes to the fore on Wait, and the album quality shows no sign of flagging in the two excellent closing tracks, High Art and Counting Lights. Fans of Glasgow pop (see Teenage Fanclub and Lightships) and like-minded Australian bands such as Kneivel, don’t miss this.
Noel Mengel
COUNTRY
KASEY CHAMBERS
Bittersweet (Warner)
****
You don’t keep a musical career flying for as long as Chambers without taking a few chances. She did that with the excellent alt-country albums she made with her then-husband, Shane Nicholson. She’s out on the ledge again with Bittersweet, recorded not with long-time collaborator, brother Nash, but with Powderfinger producer Nick DiDia and a band including Dan Kelly, Ashleigh Dallas and Bernard Fanning, who duets on the album’s title tune. It’s a breakup song (Chambers split with Nicholson last year), and here Fanning’s soulful delivery provides the aching response to one of Chambers’ most exquisite vocal performances. As ever, Chambers finds a way to appeal to city alt-country listeners as well as pure country lovers. The hymn-like Oh Grace, backed by lonesome banjo, could have been played on the back steps of the farmhouse 100 years ago. And House on The Hill is as fine a heartbreak country waltz as anyone has written for a while. Sure, life throws up hurdles. Chambers responds with an album that can proudly sit beside The Captain and Rattlin’ Bones
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Noel Mengel
CLASSICAL
VARIOUS
The Classic 100: Baroque and Before (ABC Classics)
***
The annual listeners’ surveys of favourite compositions, begun in 2002, have been among ABC Classic-FM radio’s most popular series. The top 10 choices, plus selected highlights, are featured on Baroque & Before, the 2014 survey choice released as part six of a CD collection from previous surveys covering concerto, symphony, Mozart, opera and piano. Baroque & Before opens with Hallelujah (no surprise there) from Handel’s Messiah performed with weightless vocal brilliance by Cantillation, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Antony Walker conducting. Yet, although it topped the list, Handel, with 15 hits among the 100, fell short of J.S. Bach’s 33 appearances. Thirteen of them are on this CD program, along with Allegri’s Miserere, Pachelbel’s Canon plus works by Henry Purcell, Thomas Tallis, Giovanni Pergolesi, Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi among others, including Paul Dyer’s Brandenburg Choir singing O Ecclesia by medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen. The project is admirable, but the inclusion of single movements only of longer compositions is a disadvantage.
Patricia Kelly
In Our Hearts by Brianna Carpenter
POP
BRIANNA CARPENTER
On So It Goes (Fringe Records)
****
This Brisbane singer-songwriter blends elements of folk, pop and jazz in her sound. With her jazz singer’s voice, strong arrangements and reflective songs, Carpenter quickly draws in the listener in. The album starts with Enchante as Carpenter looks to the future of love over gentle piano and yearning cello. Breezy handclaps, piano and brass feature in In Our Heart, a celebration of living in the moment as Carpenter sings “We are young/We can make mistakes’’. The album balances joy with sadness with Carpenter’s reflections on an unsatisfying relationship in The Way I Used to Be, then basks in contentment on You Are Mine. Similarly, piano-based album standout Anxious manages to be deceptively jaunty while cataloguing her personal insecurities with brief hooks from multiple instruments. Rounding out the album, Aches reflects on the vacuum of lost love, underscored by some heartbreaking strings. On So It Goes is a solid expansion from 2008’s Harlequin. Worth the wait.
Bill Johnston
