Counting Crows’ breakthrough debut August And Everything After is the group’s most-known album due to the chart smashing hits “Mr. Jones” and “Round Here”, which (outside of being quite good songs) came at a moment in music history when grunge was King. The hippie-influenced roots rock of the Crows was a distinct counterpoint to the dissonance of grunge. It worked to a large degree because of this.
Make no mistake however, Recovering The Satellites is the band’s best effort. Lead songwriter and vocalist Adam Duritz was settling into his groove, the guitar tones from Dan Vickrey are simply sublime in all their crunchy vintage glory, and the band as a whole began to experiment with more upbeat songs (“Catapult”, “Angels Of The Silences”) that added even greater weight to the more self-reflective fare like the excellent “Goodnight Elisabeth” which rocks their roots-rock roots on their sleeve. When Duritz utters the line “We couldn’t all be cowboys / Some of us are clowns” it’s hard to differentiate him from the fabled Dave Matthews. And for a lot of folks, that’s a really good thing. There’s an infectious 90’s energy on Recovering The Satellites that is palpable and can’t be denied.
Standout Songs: “Angels of The Silences”, “Goodnight Elisabeth”, “A Long December”
