User Albums Summary

A biting, declarative vocal. In some songs it works, and in others it absolutely does not. I realised partway through the album that the lyrics are probably very important for the overall enjoyment factor, and that the album is probably a concept album. Alas – I'm not a lyrical listener. Hornets! Hornets! does well to slap you awake after a long Saturday night rest. (Hence the band's name. Heh.) The vocals, guitars, drums, and bass are all reasonably simple, yet loud and in-your-face. I prefer the second half of the song, which morphs into something akin to slow stadium rock. That riff in the outro: dizzying, layered, just a little trippy but still perfectly cohesive. We get a near-seamless transition into Cattle And The Creeping Things, where the vocal starts to get a little irritating. Sure, this guy's voice cuts through the mix, but a monotonous shout doesn't do him any favours. Fortunately, the other elements of the track make up for all that nonsense. Reasonably fast and incredibly energetic – a great song for driving. The vocals settle down by the second half, and man, those guitar lines are incredible. In Your Little Hoodrat Friend, the vocalist remembers (vaguely) how to carry a melody, which I think is the main appeal behind the song, judging by number of streams. Another reasonably melodic performance (the bare minimum, by the way) in Banging Camp, with a weird sort of wall-of-sound woodwind-keyboard thing in the chorus contributing to the uniqueness factor. A loud and proud guitar part, though I could see it getting a little old on repeat listens. Charlemagne In Sweatpants: legendary track title. It's hard to top that unless your surname is Zappa or Beefheart. The song itself sounds like a Rolling Stones 70s cut (aside from the vocals which are doing their own weird thing). Even the guitar solo sounds Stoney. Stevie Nix is an exceptionally bewildering track that is saved by its little instrumental interludes every time they appear. The lyrics yell nonsensically about something regarding guys sitting on lockers. A dramatically softer middle section involves just piano, and by golly, it singlehandedly shifts the song from one of the weakest on the record to one of the strongest. In Multitude Of Casualties, Finn is both trying to add a quasi-melody to his delivery but without really matching that melody to the chords. Unfortunate. Don't Let Me Explode does a little better, though it's pretty tough to mess up a 6/8 piano piece. Weirdly reminiscent of Feeling Good. The mention of Charlemagne made me realise, "damn, this is probably a concept album that I should've given a lot more credit to." The transition into Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night is solid as heck, and the song itself sounds like a musical encore. The low, loud guitar melody, mirrored by a trumpet, is the main giveaway. (Similar to the final track, How a Resurrection Really Feels.) Apologies to Crucifixion Cruise but I can't see myself recommending that track to friends and colleagues. A single organ chord isn't as revolutionary as the Hold Steady might reckon. At least the final song is solid and progresses through several complementary sections. The idea of a music box outro is really cool to me. 3/5 Key tracks: Cattle And The Creeping Things, Your Little Hoodrat Friend, How a Resurrection Really Feels

Jimmy did what?! Clarity is a bit of a wacky choice for this band, so hopefully somebody else took Bleed American. To be fair, I only know The Middle from Jimmy Eat World, but judging by streaming numbers there's a clear choice for the most important JEW record. Now admittedly, the second half of this record makes me eat my words a little bit. Some great tunes back there. Table For Glasses starts us off with a slow build, and the harmonies in the last couple choruses make it well worth the wait. Otherwise, not too much to comment on. The sophomore track, Lucky Denver Mint, makes it clear JEW is a bit clueless when it comes to mixing. Why are those vocals so darn quite even when they're harmonised? Why do the drums sound like someone tapping an empty tissue box with a pair of chopsticks? Annoyingly, though, the song is kind of catchy, and I could sort of see myself returning to it. Your New Aesthetic, though? I can get behind that completely. Sounds like a less melodramatic precursor of '00s/'10s emo bands (think P!ATD, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance...). A very punky energy that nevertheless maintains some semblance of musical prowess. (In contrast to the vast majority of punk, of course.) Believe In What You Want has a similar proto-modern-emo feel. I like the contrast between the staccato verses and smooth, more drawn-out choruses. I'm ambivalent about A Sunday, mainly because it sounds like an early throwaway Radiohead track from the Pablo Honey sessions and (relatedly) has a very boring melody. I like to think JEW are aware of all this, though, and I hope the resemblance is intentional. That assumed to be the case, I enjoy the song. Around this point I realised these guys take clear inspiration from grunge. The clearest influence so far presents in the last few bars of Crush. Good stuff. 12.23.95 starts with a nifty synth effect and dreamy guitar riff. The song doesn't really progress anywhere, but then does it need to? Despite being the eighth track, Ten is named thus, but I give it a mild pass purely because the high piano tickles my eardrums. We're about due for a ballad, and JEW teases us with a ballad intro in Just Watch The Fireworks before diverging into a weird soft-pop sound that isn't quite interesting enough to hold my attention or respect. Fortunately, seven minutes is plenty of time for a track to develop – and by the gods, it sure develops. That second half might be the finest four minutes on the entire record. For Me This Is Heaven definitely gives it a run for its money, though. Shamelessly beautiful, freeing, open, and aglow with this wonderful energy that manages to toe the line between cheesy and drop-dead gorgeous. Then we get another solid track in Blister, with its main claim to fame being the overlapping vocal lines and unimpeachable energy. The album reaches a peak in heaviness with its penultimate track, Clarity. The (many) guitar lines, while simple, are also pretty intense and engaging. We end with the gargantuan 16-minute Goodbye Sky Harbour. And a very interesting choice to not allow any musical progression at all. It's like if LONG SEASON (Fishmans) were slightly worse. Which, to be clear, isn't really a dig at JEW, because that Fishmans record is flawless. But at least it varies a bit. Goodbye Sky Harbour repeats the same pretty guitar melody with an unchanging background texture for, well, 16 minutes straight. I like it, but it could be so much better, you know? (I stand corrected. We get some textural changes from 12:30 onward.) 4/5 Key tracks: Your New Aesthetic, For Me This Is Heaven, Blister

Shoutout to the legendary model Dolores Erickson – that's an incredible album cover considering the year of release. They allowed this in the uptight mid-60s? The music itself is passable but it's the visual artwork that really creates a lasting impression. I'm not super convinced by A Taste Of Honey – it lacks the spark of the Beatles' version (which itself is one of the weakest tracks on a Beatles studio album – but I digress), and in fact lacks any vocals at all. Still, those soft, cheerful trumpet lines have undeniable charm, and fortunately Herb Alpert (and co.) appear to agree with me, since they appear in every one of the twelve tracks here. Unfortunately, though, such consistency means the listener has to search elsewhere for track-to-track variation. In Green Peppers, there isn't much of that, and so it's fortunate that it lasts only 91 seconds. Tangerine features some nice acoustic guitar lines, a nice piano solo, and a Latin-style groove, easily making it an early-album highlight. (But Led Zeppelin's Tangerine – no relation – is better.) Bittersweet Samba, true to its name, alternates between major and minor feels, and the melody is extremely cheery while following a standard Flamenco chord progression. Then Lemon Tree comes in with a nice melody that unfortunately gets a little buried when it's played on anything other than the trumpet. Kind of hard to hate such a whimsical little ditty, though. The title track has a melody that strays close to something extremely recognisable, and I have to like it out of principle. (Edit: the piece I'm thinking of is Spanish Flea, performed by this same group. No wonder!) Maybe the most impressive instrument playing so far, in terms of raw expression, in Love Potion No. 9. It isn't *that* impressive, mind you, but those trumpet and sax tones stand out amongst the crowd. Also the longest song here, at a staggering 3 minutes flat. El Garbanzo feels a little simplistic and limp, and I'm left here wishing I were listening to something more exciting from 1965. (Think Rubber Soul, Highway 61 Revisited, A Love Supreme, etc.) Call it side 2 blues. Now Ladyfingers... I could absolutely see this as the theme of a retro movie. Think The Godfather. Or maybe a whimsical Christmas edition of The Godfather. Lovely melody here. Butterball: ridiculously charming and technically transitions into Peanuts by using the same trumpet note to end the former and begin the latter. Peanuts has near identical energy and simplicity. A standard yet charming melody plus a bouncy bassline in Lollipops and Roses sends off the record. 3/5 Key tracks: Tangerine, Love Potion No. 9, Ladyfingers

Popularity-wise you cannot possibly justify this album making the original list. Good thing it's user-submitted, otherwise I'll need to have a word with Mr Dimery. But the music is, bar a couple of tracks, pretty strong. Suspicious Minds, though catchy enough, kind of lacks the punch I'd like to hear from the punk genre. Nice drums, and unusually solid vocals given THE SPORTS's contemporaries. Live Work and Play is exceptionally fast-paced and features a fun little chord run that repeats throughout the song. The singing gets a lot worse, but over time you learn to tune that out when dealing with late-70s Aussie output. A clean, catchy track in Don't Throw Stones; the chorus hook doesn't give us much to work with, but dang, is it memorable. Nice basswork (though almost too loud in the mix) and backing vocals. Thru the Window has a sunny, bright feel, similar to the previous track but otherwise not particularly memorable. Kind of an Eagles-esque sound. Then we get the big track, Who Listens to the Radio, an even brighter sound than all the previous tracks. (My ears are blinded.) "Who listens to thuh, radi-o!" Very nice. The side 1 finale comes in Tired of Me, another Eagles-sounding track. Definitely a couple verses/choruses longer than it needs to be, but it sounds fantastic, so I can't complain too much. The mixing in Step by Step is pretty crap – the vocal part sounds like it was recorded live, and clumsily at that – but the fast, smooth bars, the bright guitar... why, hello. Similar feel in Worst Kind, who also reincorporates those sweet, peppy (and very loud) basslines, passable backing vocals, and a new Latin-sounding percussion section. So Obvious does not spark much enjoyment in me; I might be getting SPORTS exhaustion. The breakdowns aren't as cool or impactful as the band thinks. We get back to relative normalcy in Hit Single; its main highlight is the mirrored guitar/bass hook that repeats quite a few times. Also, the wobbly synth(?) sound behind the chorus. Sounds a bit like the Stones. Terror Hits rejuvenates with some of that older punk energy – nice – and also has a guest vocalist. I think. It could also be an unusually high-pitched backing vocalist or a double track. Regardless: great little guitar solo towards the end. Big Sleep ends the album a bit gloomily and uninspiringly. Darn. 3/5 Key tracks: Live Work and Play, Don't Throw Stones, Who Listens to the Radio

Luckily, I'm in the mood for something acoustic and mellow. Unluckily, Bon Iver delivers it in just about the most monotone, unvaried way possible. Flume starts us off warmly, melodically, with some dark, lonely undertones beneath the sunny surface. Great guitar playing, though the highlight of the song is when it's completely absent, in the eerie-sounding textural breakdown around 2:30. Lump Sum uses a series of muddy, close-knit chords on guitar to create a distinctive but hard to describe texture. Pretty cool. I'm not fully sold on the matchup between vocals and instrumental here, though each is quite pretty in isolation. While Skinny Love is fine enough – inoffensive, emotionally charged, you know the drill – I struggle to see the massive appeal it has (judging by streaming numbers). I guess it's pretty coverable? Mysterious. I'm starting to get some percussion withdrawal: where's the bite in these tracks And The Wolves, despite its title, contains the least bite so far. Again, technically the guitar and singing are strong – the latter is pretty distinctive, too – but without good compositions or interesting production/energy, listeners don't have much to work with. We see a slight turn in the listeners' favour with Blindsided, which features a pretty solid vocal hook in the chorus. Plus, a brief but extremely cool reversed synth(?) effect. Dammit, give me more of that! Creature Fear sounds like a scrapped McCartney track from the White Album. The way it suddenly and brazenly picks up steam for a couple lines... whew. Good stuff. Unfortunately, the completely monotone texture (i.e. identical to previous songs) brings the song down a few notches. In Team... by the gods, Bon Iver listened! There's percussion sprinkled in! Unfortunately, it's about the least interesting percussion imaginable – essentially lightweight caveman drumming. And the rest of the instrumental does not make up for it. For Emma does a much better job. A good solid sound, if a little simple. I would've liked a more interesting trumpet part. Re: Stacks? Eh. Doesn't do much for me. And it's about three times as long as it should be. 2/5 Key tracks: Flume

This group’s main claim to fame is the No Man’s Sky soundtrack. But dang, even without that accolade, they definitely make a name for themselves here. One Time for All Time packs a solid electronic punch. If this album had been more popular, I could easily see it having been picked for Dimery’s original list. Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here, the opener, slowly ramps up the tension over the first couple minutes by increasing the tempo, upping textures and dynamics… then suddenly cutting everything out for a piano break before diving back in with minimal warning. The piano theme, though a bit generic, anchors the listener in even as cacophony in the percussion and other instruments threatens to make you lose your way. Pretty exciting as an opener. And unusually… well, “video game-esque” for 2006. I could easily see this making the rounds for high-production studio games even 20 years later. Await Rescue is much more percussion-focused, to the point where it’s essentially an extended drum solo. A bit experimental and even gazey in places. I prefer the more melody-focused, cinematic middle section – if only for its accessibility. I’m less certain about 23kid – texturally, it’s a bit monotonous – but at least we’re re-approaching the (shoe)gaze elements with gusto. The soft guitar outro is the highlight. For track 5: cool to hear an electronic track in 5/4 (or 5/8) time – perhaps a better title would be Welcome to the Time Signatures. (Hehe.) Great drumming here, and the orchestra adds a lot of unnecessary but solid emotion. Mean Low Water is another drum-centric track, and this time it’s pulled off very slickly. I really like how the rhythm is at once complex and accessible. Same comment for the synths(?) and guitar. For the first minute of Climbing on Roofs – mind you, that’s almost half the track – I questioned whether it would pick up steam from its humble white-noise beginnings. I was right to question, for though it built to a juxtaposing section, that section was still noisy and pretty unapproachable. The Big Afraid is extremely tame in comparison. Guitar-glockenspiel combo never misses (see: All I Need by Radiohead), possibly until now. But nah, this is decent. A passable coda to the previous couple of more rambunctious songs. We get another fun time signature – 7/4 (or 7/8) – in 65 Doesn’t Understand You. A confusing blitz of synthwork that nevertheless is oddly compelling. I like whatever fuzziness is happening in the right ear. A few start-stops punctuate the music in a startling yet engaging way. Plenty of contrasting sections, too. Hard to hate a piece like that. Radio Protector is an instant hit. Like the intro track, it’s cinematic, produced very cleanly, and holds your hand with its consistent piano part even as the drums and synths go off the rails. Even the piano part goes a little haywire in places. The song tones itself down at a couple points. Very admirable. Somewhere between 3 and 4. I’ll bump it down to 3 because it has no real stake in the 1001Albums canon and the genre’s been done to death ever since. 3/5 Key tracks: Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here, Mean Low Water, Radio Protector

A lot of hefty track lengths here. And Porcupine Tree makes them work pretty dang well. Deadwing is structurally a little difficult to follow, nodding its approval to progressive rock but with plenty of blunt post-rock and metal influence. The first really compelling part of the song has to be the hesitant guitar solo and those harmonised vocals that follow. Very 70s-esque. The texture gets stripped back substantially around 6 minutes in, leading to an ambient synth/guitar-scape that easily sells the track to me (if the earlier sections didn't already). We get our first hard-hitting riff in Shallow – and by golly, it's a corker. The contrasting sunny-sounding section, helped a lot by the piano, creates a nice juxtaposition. Way better than Lady Gaga's version. After the beautiful, stringy, emotionally charged Lazarus, we get the groovy Halo, featuring an excellent bassline that steals the show from all other textures. Those muted vocals, however cool, never stood a chance. As with the earlier Shallow, the verses are muddy and (dare I say) stanky – in the best way, of course – while the choruses lift your soul to the heavens. Arriving Somewhere But Not Here provides us with another meandering multipart masterpiece (arguably). The guitar stands out tremendously in this one, and the whole piece gives off a Pink Floyd vibe. Inspired by Dogs, maybe. The organs, vocal harmonies, the occasional echoed lyric, and the clean production all send my mind into Animals territory. A Beatlesque performance in Mellotron Scratch, at least in the parts with vocals. The solo piano parts are a little... "mysterious" by Beatles standards. After a slightly lacklustre first five minutes or so, Porcupine Tree light a fire underneath the listener with a roaring guitar section that transitions into a strange falsetto outro. One of the weaker tracks here, though by no means bad. With Open Car, we get yet another iteration of the heavily contrasting verses and choruses. Great guitar riff in the former, sporting a time signature that sounds complicated but probably isn't. A smooth song transition takes us into Start Of Something Beautiful (with that title, shouldn't this song open the album?). 9/4 time signature, I think. And 5/4 later. A lot of rising tension and distorted guitar notes here. Pretty cinematic. Equally cinematic is the closer, Glass Arm Shattering, which features a great bombastic four-chord progression. The vocals aren't the best here and everything feels a bit... blurry? But the vision is definitely there. 4/5 Key tracks: Shallow, Arriving Somewhere But Not Here, Open Car

I won't do a track-by-track here because the songs fly past so quickly that it's difficult to judge them individually. Plus, they bleed into one another, essentially creating a 37-minute medley. The first time we're allowed to catch our breath is the 6-minute All Black ("all black everything" / etc), whose appeal is questionable. Like a hip-hop Aphex Twin with substantially less musical awareness. Pretty experimental, in an intriguing rather than a grating manner. (You'd be surprised how often albums end up closer to the latter.) It's so intriguing, in fact, that this might be the first time I've ever been so *fascinated* and yet so underwhelmed. Exceptionally unmelodic, unharmonic, unrhythmic. Disorienting. The first track that manages to be vaguely compelling, sonically, is the grim, creepy, almost doomy Interlude 01 (Freestyle). Very cool ambience in the back, helping to distract from the poor, generic vocals. Then the Wake Up is simply a better version of that track. Cool as heck in most ways. Long Way Away gives the ears a much-needed sonic break. Nice little shanty-type tune. True Believer I'm ambivalent about; the chorus and drone note are pretty solid, but those industrial-sounding SFX get old pretty quick. It gets a passing grade, barely. Air 'Em Out is also barely passable. It has a decent beat – better than most of the record, in fact – but that vocal just ain't it, man. Story 5 replicates the a cappella of the earlier Long Way Away, and it's just as good the second time. Maybe better with those gorgeous layered harmonies. Quirky and surprisingly groovy ditty at the end in A Better Place. A little fast-paced and difficult to follow – and you can't reasonably expect anybody to take in those lyrics on a first pass – but the synths, the low drones, the hypnotic, rhythmic vocal delivery... pretty cool. All the tracks I didn't mention are crap. 2/5 Key tracks: Wake Up, Long Way Away, Story 5

Simple, well-composed, effective. Turns out Amadou & Mariam are both blind – and yet they captured a vivid image of Mali that I have to assume is about as accurate as one can get. I'm not fully convinced by the lack of interesting chord progressions or melodies, but as to the remaining musical elements, you can't really go wrong. At times the music felt just a little too restrained: A&M never quite hit the ground running. But they get damn close. M' Bife starts us off with a wistful, contemplative two-chord (I & vi) piece that has an intense naïveté about it. We get a seamless transition into M' Bife Balafon, essentially an instrumental coda to that great intro track. Everything is very lightweight, very clean, and exceptionally listenable. A slightly thicker-sounding, festival-like assortment of textures comes in with Coulibaly. The group vocals during the main hook sharply draw in one's attention, and the twangy guitar and low bass/drone add warmth and colour to the sound. I expect La Réalité to relate in some way to criticism of law enforcement – likely police violence – based on the repeating siren motif. Though that motif (really just an inserted sound effect) gets a little repetitive, the rest of the song remains rock-solid – especially those overlapping guitars in the outro. Senegal Fast Food is an obvious standout, though it doesn't excite as much as I expected (given the fact that it's the most popular track here). We get another Mariam vocal in Artistiya. I think I like her singing just a little more than Amadou's. La Fête au Village pulls what I like to call the "Pink Floyd Progression" tactic. The entire piece alternates between the i and IV chords. And dang it, it sounds great. Camions Sauvages (I read it as Sausages at first and was sorely disappointed) is pretty good, albeit repetitive and (dare I say) aimless. Beaux Dimanches: a bit predictable, but warm and hearty nonetheless. That wind instrument in the back adds a ton of life with its countermelody. La Paix is yet another track to use (essentially) two chords in a bluesy, extremely predictable progression – but it's groovy enough to lend it a passing grade. Djanfa, though? Now that's a cool sound. Not at all a style I tend to listen to (same goes for the entire record, honestly). But all I feel is contentment. It helps that I'm watching a blue wave in the 2026 US midterms whilst typing out this review. Taxi Bamako does La Fête au Village v2.0 with its chords. Pretty cool, though apart from the bass clarinet(-sounding) instrument, we've heard it all before. Politic Amagni is the first really prominent use of acoustic guitar. And dang it, it sure packs a punch. A Stairway To Heaven progression, I call that. Great singing here, too. A lovely evening feel. The highlight of Gnidjougouya is that great guitar line behind the vocals. The vocals themselves get a little... obstructive, maybe, at times. Finally, M' Bife Blues gives us a pleasant, low-calibre way to close out the record. That melodic percussion in the right ear has a really cool, distinctive sound. 4/5 Key tracks: M' Bife, Coulibaly, La Fête au Village, Politic Amagni

It had the potential to go a lot higher, but gosh darnit, that's simply too much musical repetition for a guy to handle. Disappointingly, All That Glitters neither predecessor nor spin-off of All Star. Appointingly, though, it's pretty dang groovy. The rhythm section excels tremendously. That bass, those drums... Wow. Weak vocal delivery – maybe "disinterested" is a good descriptor – though I suspect that's very intentional. I could listen to that instrumental second half for hours. The Pink Floyd jam harmonies (i and IV) come out in full force for well over six minutes. And in Floydian fashion, they never get old. Opium Shuffle is a bit disorienting, taking that lo-fi house production of hip-hop's golden era and going a little too ham with it. Rarely for any song, I dislike the percussion here. Also, the song is just a little too repetitive. Here we see the stark difference between a i-IV and i-iv chord loop. The former is much, much better over long, gradually shifting jam sessions than the latter. Luckily, G.B.H. seizes back the reins of excitement. A nice, light, upbeat groove to this one. Reggae-esque. There's just one very significant issue: the vocalist. Man, that guy sounds terrible. It's a good thing he's absent for large portions of the song. Same with Twist & Crawl. It's a pretty good song – cool bloopy synths in the back – with really the only obvious bad aspect being that grating singing. Bit of a hard rocker, Dirt is. I like it. It benefits greatly from not containing the singer that tarnished a few tracks on side 1. A bit repetitive but I can definitely see mindlessly listening to this at a club or behind some dialogue in a scene from MIB. Rocco seems to tread water until its halfway point, where it does a complete 180 with an excellent percussionless middle section. I don't really mind the synth-drums coming back in, either – but that section without... *man*. Rekkit, though? Nah, nah. In the first half, it struggles to achieve anything remotely resembling a melody. That's a grave musical sin if I've ever heard one. Then, in the second half, the song doubles (and triples, quadruples, etc.) down on a one-bar melody that gets increasingly distorted without really improving beyond its first iteration. I Spy is an understandable closer – mid-tempo, mysterious, and wouldn't be out of place in a criminal investigation or spy film. Is that an electric sitar? 2/5 Key tracks: All That Glitters, Rocco (middle section)

A very clear off-branch of the Smiths. That instrumental section could easily be nabbed from Marr and the crew. Fortunately, the Smiths are one of the finest 80s acts to imitate, so the Housemartins are in good hands. Overall: no bad tracks, but a few wacky ones that somewhat throw off the project. "It's happy hour again"... Yeah, that's a great opening track with a great hook. Simple, punky, punchy, and recorded with exceptional clarity. I like the guitar, the backing vocals, the clean drumming, the church bell solo, and pretty much everything else to boot. Get Up Off Our Knees has that distinctive Morrissey melody and delivery ("bankers will be... bankerssss" – yeah, it sounds exactly how you'd imagine). Cool little reduction of texture in the second half, followed by a sudden jumpstart entering the final chorus. Peculiar singing in Flag Day, but the song is cohesive enough. Cool extended ending sequence; this is a good example of a 5-minute jangle pop track done right. The track Anxious sounds almost like an early Talking Heads song – though quite poppy by TH's standards. Love the chorus here. After the short, ecstatic harmonica honk Reverends Revenge, we get a much more standard "80s British pop" track in Sitting On A Fence. That drum break in the middle is hilariously on-brand. Great song, though. I like the brazenness and punchiness throughout. Sheep ("it's sheep we're up against") would make a good anthem for anybody trying to colonise New Zealand. Finishing out side 1, Over There's instrumentation – particularly its bassline – are pretty strong. "Is anyone thereeeeeeeeeee?" moan the backing vocalists. Another goofy, Morrissey-esque vocal in Think For A Minute – this time a falsetto. It's a decent track but not nearly as great as its five million Spotify streams would have you believe. We're Not Deep is an immediate and non-negotiable improvement on the previous track's sound. Give me "ba-ba-babababa" melodic interjections any day of the week. The piano part of Lean On Me sounds like an early Billy Joel cut. It's pretty great. I never tire of good keyboard playing. I feel the lads are a little overconfident as to how strong of a composition Freedom is, but that overconfidence kind of pays off. If you aren't paying attention you won't really notice the lack of interesting musical ideas. I'll Be Your Shelter (Just Like A Shelter)... What a title. Cool little pickup at 1:30, shifting gears from souluful piano piece to active, driven rock. The singing is pretty goofy but I'll allow it. Another great extended outro, with the vocalist emulating McCartney or MJ or something. The token a cappella track (bom bom ba ba bom) in People Get Ready. At least these guys have some variety. A joyful but uninteresting instrumental (The Mighty Ship follows), then another questionable a cappella track (He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother) finishes us off. 4/5 Key tracks: Happy Hour, Anxious, Lean On Me

This sort of singing has been made completely obsolete by 2000s imitative rock bands, but it's pretty great for its time. A clean, polished, emotive sound, likely inspired by U2 and other 80s/90s stadium greats. Unfortunately, Counting Crows have precisely one sound that they slather across all of their tracks. So, in an LP format, the audience's patience really gets tested. Round Here, though perhaps a little generic in composition, has some notable highlights: the soft organ in the back, the high-quality production, the not-quite-drunken singing... and, of course, that fantastic guitar line that starts around the halfway point. Big swell in texture in the last couple minutes, making for a great all-rounded opening track. If you were hoping for a snappier, more country-esque track, look no further than Omaha. Again very well produced, and plenty of elements to keep any kind of listener engaged. Backing vocals, adding some blur and emotion to the mix, are the main highlights here. Hold up, I think I know Mr. Jones. Sha-la-la-la-la-la, yeah. I like the way he sings the song title. Afterward, we arrive at the perfect spot for a ballad, and Perfect Blue Buildings has just the thing. Though I'm noticing a pattern where Duritz builds up steam – sometimes unnecessarily – between the start and end of a song. Sometimes you gotta let a track breathe, man. Anna Begins excels mostly for its bassline and percussion; the rest is a bit nondescript compared to previous cuts. Side 1 ends with Time And Time Again, a song which is far too proud of its own title (and associated melodic hook). An unpromising start to side 2, unfortunately, with the track Rain King. Give us some new textures, some experimentation, anything, dang it! Don't get me wrong – Rain King is solid in isolation – but as track 7 of an album with a near-zero genre variety, it could do a lot better. Duritz's voice-crack "yeEAH" at the end just barely pushes the song into the "good" camp. Sullivan Street adds a lot of colour with its punchy piano part and Rolling Stones-esque vocals. Ghost Train is alright; a little depressing, but the mysterious atmosphere serves it well. An honest-to-god proper ballad, finally, with Raining In Baltimore. Much appreciated. It's not all that creative, but at this point I'm just searching for variety amidst a sea of crows. A Murder Of One: omigod they said the thing!!!1! ("Counting crows.") They also say "change" repeatedly, which feels ironic somehow. 3/5 Key tracks: Round Here, Omaha, Mr. Jones