Album Review: Counting Crows – Butter Miracle the Complete Sweets
3 min read
Counting Crows became famous in 1993 with their debut album August and Everything After. The Album sold millions of copies and made the band overnight stars. Since their debut, the band have kept a lower profile, with lead singer Adam Duritz publicly speaking about their struggles with fame. However, they’ve stayed successful with all but one of their subsequent albums reaching the top 10 in the US. Their most recent outing is Butter Miracle the Complete Sweets, a follow-up to the 2021 4-track ep Butter Miracle Suite 1 which adds five new tracks to the album.
It opens with With Love from A-Z a slow love song that explores feelings of isolation and homesickness while on a trip across America. It’s a sweet track with a narrative lyrical style that harkens back to Counting Crows’ earliest work. It’s followed by Spaceman in Tulsa, which is a faster-paced track, with an infectious beat line. However, behind the more optimistic sound backing the lyrics are a meditative take on the difficulties of performing with them singing “I’m just an empty smile”. Boxcars leans into a more gritty classic rock sound, reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, with its cynical take on the American dream and fast-paced lyrics. The five new tracks are rounded out by the ballad style Virginia in the Rain, with slow piano backing, and melancholy lyrics giving it a timeless feel. And Under the Aurora, a slow track, with a nostalgic sound as they remember “a sad reminder of the things we fell in love with yesterday”.
The final four tracks on the album were the four that were first released as part of the Butter Miracle Suite 1 EP. Lead singer Adam Duritz has described them as being part of a continuous story that takes place across the tracks. The first track The Tall Grass is a stripped-back number with lyrics that almost sound spoken. It tells a simple but affecting tale about rabbit hunting in the British countryside. Elevator Boots is perhaps the most narrative track yet, cataloguing a blossoming relationship between two characters in 1970s Texas. Angel of 14th Street is a more straightforward rock number that’s influence can be seen in the extended tracks of the album, especially the equally americana inspired Boxcars. It carries on from elevator boots as the narrative tracks a girl dreaming of getting out of her “sleepy western town” and travelling to New York. The album closes on Bobby and the Rat Kings, a rock anthem style track that ends the album on an exhilarating note. The lyrics lean into modern concepts and can be almost silly at times, especially with the line “z tried to edit reddit” which seems to belie the very much millennial bands’ uncertainty with writing a Gen Z anthem. Still, it has its moments with a very catchy chorus, and ending the last verse on “we’re the sparks in the dark, That’ll never go out”, it has an optimistic, hopeful feel.
Butter Miracle the Complete Sweets adds to the original Butter Miracle Suite 1 with tracks that feel real extensions of the EP. Counting Crows’ strong lyrics and classic rock sound keep the album interesting throughout and lend it a timeless sound (when not leaning into references). Suite 1 was a fun EP, but the five new tracks raise it to the level of a truly great album.
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