ARTIST: Counting Crows
ALBUM: Somewhere Under Wonderland
LABEL: Capital
RELEASE DATE: September 2, 2014
Keepin’ it Simple
Written by Silas Valentino
If you begin typing “Big Yellow Taxi” into the Google search bar, Counting Crows-affiliated results are the first to appear. In terms song covers this must constitute as some sort of musical feat, especially since the original was Joni Mitchell. Since enduring the Judas Kiss of scoring a number one mega hit off a debut album—1993’s “Mr. Jones”— the Counting Crows have consistently dodged the pigeon-held title of being a one hit wonder. Their 1999 album This Desert Life is an underappreciated time capsule of a waning decade and their once inescapable “Accidently in Love” was at one time bigger than Jesus himself for some people.
Seven albums in arrives Somewhere Under Wonderland, a pleasant record that’s consistent with the Crow’s latest catalogue additions. It’s not flashy, adventurous nor packing heat in the hit song department but it is a dependable Counting Crow’s record. If you’ve come to terms with singer Adam Duritz fake dreads then Somewhere Under Wonderland will serve you well but if you only have a few seconds to spare then this album might as well continue its residency in wonderland.
Somewhere Under Wonderland is all over the map—but just in terms of its lyrics. “Keep going till we hit Reno, Nevada/I don’t see it all that much these days” Duritz sings in “Palisades Park then soon after in “Earthquake Driver” he croons “But then I had to go skipping and diving and bouncing back to New York City” before finally “Somehow missed New Mexico/Fell to Earth in Baltimore I know” which begins “Dislocation.” The band revealed they wrote part of this record while on tour last summer and the open road imagery and Americana music style is prevalent throughout.
Opening the record is the 8-minute amusement park tribute “Palisades Park.” Similar to the songs that might accompany an old 8-mm film showcasing a fading American attraction, the song begins with a slow yet calming waltz where a piano exchanges notes with a trumpet. After a long minute, Duritz joins the piano with a detailed description of a life currently caught in the rearview.
“God of Ocean Tides” plays out like a Grateful Dead song sans psychedelic distractions. Over an acoustic guitar arrangement Duritz laments an early drive out of town into a grey morning full of truck stops, river Gods and “gas stations of the cross.”
The album’s centerpiece is “Scarecrow” where honky-tonk guitar leads bash about while the Crow’s background singers add just the right amount of “do do, do do dos” to turn the song into an infectious earworm. The power of Duritz has always been in his ability to yarn words and phrases together to make a modern Norman Rockwell out of his poems. “Riding the subway in a Valium haze/ I need the whites, she gets the blues” and later “All these American boys at the Park N Shop/Selling their memories for a dollar a pop,” Duritz conjures images that show a familiar sounding American life described in his enigmatic perspective.
Rounding out the album is the somber “Possibility Days” which highlights each member of the band’s musical ability. Each verse offers an opportunity for the musicians to showcase their craft for making bleak but enduring songs, which is something that the Counting Crows have been perfecting since “Colorblind” graced our ears in Cruel Intentions.
These 1990’s Bohos have fully adjusted into adulthood and with that comes a certain level of complacency. They’ve made their hits and they’ve made their art yet there’s nothing discouraging here. The Counting Crows are just playing as they see fit.