Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993 TAG: 9312040172
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Counting Crows' sound invites - but resists - comparison; when asked to cite influences, lead singer/songwriter Adam Duritz reluctantly offers up Van Morrison. Any of the great rock poets might have been singing Duritz to sleep in his cradle. But the band's debut album, "August and Everything After," owes almost everything to the songwriting skill - and it is enormous - of Duritz.
From the plaintive "Round Here" to the hard-rocking final cut, "A Murder of One," and especially in between, Duritz immerses himself in life's most difficult subject matter, but with the salvation of a sense of humor: loneliness and delusion on "Mr. Jones"; fear of falling in love on "Anna Begins" and being too far from home on what may be the album's best song, the beautiful, mesmerizing "Raining in Baltimore," a heartfelt plea for the big towns, a big love - and a raincoat.
Skillfully produced by T-Bone Burnett, "August and Everything After" refuses to be left behind after repeated listenings and inspires the imagination like great fiction. Duritz sings as if his life depends on the listener getting the point. No emotion is left unturned, and the result is a collection of such shameless beauty that these songs sound like they should have been written a long time ago.
- Katherine Reed
by CNB