Review

It’s been a good decade since Counting Crows last offered us a proper studio album, and one might have wondered if Adam Duritz and his band of ragged troubadours had anything left to say. With Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, a title as quaint as a village bakery, the band returns with a surprising sense of cohesion, vigour, and dare I say—grace. Originally teased as a suite of interconnected tracks in 2021 (Suite One), this “Complete Sweets” offering now rounds out the vision—a song cycle less concerned with chart-hugging hooks and more invested in musical continuity and emotional resonance. It’s no August and Everything After, mind you, but Duritz has long stopped chasing his own ghosts. The record flows like a seamless medley, something between Abbey Road's Side B and a Laurel Canyon confessional. "The Tall Grass" opens with that characteristic Duritz yearning, equal parts wide-eyed and weary. There's an undeniable warmth in the instrumentation—jangling guitars, piano flourishes, and harmonies that feel lived-in rather than laboured. Perhaps most arresting is “Elevator Boots,” the closest thing this album has to a radio single, where Duritz romanticises the transient life of a musician in a tone that feels both nostalgic and wry. It's classic Counting Crows fare: poetic without being pretentious, accessible without pandering. There's an admirable lack of vanity in the production, which leans analogue and organic, like it was recorded somewhere with creaky floorboards and strong coffee. It’s storytelling-first, a rarity in an age of algorithmic gloss. Butter Miracle won’t convert the uninitiated, nor does it aim to. This is a band comfortable in its own slightly wrinkled skin, still whispering their truths to anyone willing to sit still long enough to listen. In the end, it’s not a comeback—it’s a continuation, and a rather lovely one at that.

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