This Desert Life

by

Counting Crows

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I was not a Counting Crows fan before I bought "This Desert Life." In fact, I had never even owned or listened to an entire one of their albums. When I heard the song "Hanging Around" for the first time, (in the car on a 14-hour road trip) it made me want to hear the whole disc. In short, this cd is amazing. Songs like "Colorblind" and "All My Friends" are pure poetry come to life. Where on the other hand, you have songs like "Mrs. Potter's Lullabye" and "Hanging Around" which are just great, upbeat roadtrip songs. Luckily, the album is not limited to just a few great tunes. Every song on "This Desert Life" is well-written and orchestrated. The album never loses speed or flavor--in fact, the songs just seem to get better and better. A great thing about Counting Crows' sound on "This Desert Life," is that you can hear different influences in their songs (for instance REM ("Colorblind"), Van Morrison ("All My Friends"), Bob Dylan ("St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream"), but they never lose sight of their own sound. I highly recommend this album. And especially to those "non-fans"--at least give it a listen. It's definitely worth it.

A lot of CDs nowadays you just pop into the player and let them go about their business. They start, do their thing, and come to an end. You aren't sure if you really ever heard anything, probably because all of the songs all sounded the same or because there wasn't anything worth remembering.

The thing with The Counting Crows latest release, "This Desert Life," is that it can seem like you never even heard anything while it was on if you weren't paying attention. The fans of The Counting Crows will dig it, but those who are looking for a repeat of "August And Everything After" and "Recovering The Satellites" won't find much of the same ground here and will probably be disappointed. Where as on their previous two albums they've had a mix of blues-like pop-rock, this album features more of a mellow rock. The opening track, "Hanginaround," is the closest thing to a rock song on "This Desert Life," it's sing-along fun and very up in feeling (not to mention that they were drunk when they recorded parts of it). The rest of the album is very mellow in feeling, due to the lyrics and the way Adam sings them, and at a laid-back pace.

The sense I get when I listen to this CD is that the band just sat around and took their time putting down what they wanted, without a feeling of being rushed to get something to radio. It's not my favorite Crows CD, but it is quality and it is worth listening to if you can give it a chance.

Also, if "Colorblind" really depresses you, wait for the hidden track, "Kid Things," to come up after "St. Robinson" and it'll pick you up. That's the best part of "This Desert Life," it begins on an up note and closes with a positive note.