Review Summary: Worth checking out if you carry a soft spot for the Counting Crows, especially if you enjoy the rootsier side of their sound.
For years, when asked what my “guilty pleasure” band was, my knee-jerk response was “The Counting Crows.” What did that say about me? For one, it said something about how I defined the concept of a “guilty pleasure”: To my peers, a guilty pleasure was an artist you enjoyed even though you knew they were bad, or at least of low, cheap quality; to me, it was a band that I thought was authentically good, but that I was embarrassed to like. It was music that made me feel vulnerable and cheesy and lame if it was noticed socially, but warm and gooey and sentimental when engaged with on my own, staring at the ceiling of my room on a warm, late summer evening—the type that a song like “Round Here” accentuates so perfectly. So when my roommate answered this “guilty pleasure” question with “Limp Bizkit” and proceded to make fun of Fred Durst with mocking, faux-macho posturing, and my girlfriend batted her eyelashes at the likes of “Backstreet Boys” with pseudo-idolatrous adulation, I sheepishly turned my eyes at the ground and explained how, you know, “August and Everything After” really is one of the best 90s albums, and is certainly the best debut album of that era, and their newer stuff is really underrated, see, cuz their later career has some real gems and shouldn’t be defined by that Shrek song or the Joni Mitchell cover or Adam Duritz’ fake dreads or weird public persona.... etc, etc. Yes, I made certain hipsters and metalheads wrinkle their noses with that answer; I also made people that aren't snobby about music confused: “Doesn’t everyone like that band? Why would you feel guilty about liking them?”
And, well, you know, maybe that second response is telling. I discovered The Counting Crows alongside the likes of Pearl Jam, REM, the Pixies, Weezer, and even Nine Inch Nails, who were my far-and-away favorite. The Crows were a part of a teenaged musical awakening that longed so much to differentiate myself, to be “alternative”, to scare my parents. And the Crows have always fit oddly in that mixture; the “scare-the-parents” factor just isn’t really there for them. Surrounded by peers that longed to transcend existence with the howling despair of an addict, or break open the stratosphere with blistering punk energy, or even just dissipate into the ether with so much ironic detatchment, the Counting Crows could perhaps be best understood as rock and roll inertia. They were the warm sound of glancing back sentimentally at all the things I was trying to leave behind; that I was afraid I had no choice but to leave behind. They did not make me excited or angry or cool; they did not sharpen my edge. They softened my core and made me regret the need to grow up.
In 2025, nostalgia has taken on a different tone. It feels oversaturating. And for that reason, the idea of a new record from an aged Counting Crows seems even less appealing than it did the last time around, with 2014’s “Somewhere Under Wonderland” (a good record, better than expected, even, but leaving little impact or impression). What good is nostalgia right now, Counting Crows? I couldn’t even recall the first suite of songs being released four years ago; I’m not sure I even listened to them. Why should we care now that you finally got around to finishing the product well past its shelf life? Fortunately, the strange release method, the bizarrely off-putting title and artwork, and awkward promotional videos are the only truly questionable elements of this release, as “Butter Miracle” is surprisingly solid and at ease musically, despite conspicuously uncomfortable trappings accenting just about every part of this release.
To put it most simply, this is the most authentic The Counting Crows have sounded since their classic debut. No, it is not my favorite release of theirs since then; not by a longshot. But, I can very conceivably see it filling that role for someone. This is because “Butter Miracle” sees the Crows being totally honest about the core of their sound. As I pointed out earlier, they fit oddly among the pantheon of their 90s alt rock superstars; they felt definitive of that MTV generation yet didn’t really fit in with it in terms of their genuine ethos, spirit, or influence. They were about honesty and sentiment and vulnerability, not ironic detachment, counterculture, or rebellion. Their attempts to follow “August” were met with diminishing returns because they always seemed to capitulate to expectations of their surroundings: I love “Recovering the Satellites” but the record’s attempts to be harder edged just never sounded quite as earnest as anything on “August; “This Desert Life” and “Hard Candy” have their gems, but also a few too many shallow, unconvincing pop tunes; and “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings”, finally, was a truly conflicting record, one where the band seemed frustrated, forcing their own style completely out joint by splitting their “hard” and “soft” sound between two different sides of a record. This is so much to say that Counting Crows sounded like dad rock by the time their second album came out, and their attempts to resist being dad rock felt unconvincing, making them seem always about a decade older than they actually were.
What “Butter Miracle” puts front and center that none of these other records really did is that the core of the Crow’s sound is not really analogous to that of REM or Pearl Jam, but roots rock and Americana: the daddest of dad rock. To its benefit, “Butter Miracle” sees the band more willfully embracing these sounds than ever before. The record is warm, comforting, and fittingly smooth, sounding more at home on a playlist with John Mellencamp, The Band, or Randy Newman than it would alongside any of their 90s peers. Bluesy solos and piano leads are included liberally across the album, and the band remains as lyrical and ballad driven as ever. My favorite moment may be the yacht rock-conjuring bridge on "Angel and 14th Street." On single “Spaceman in Tulsa”, Duritz sings: “I’m a caterpillar, and I’m a painkiller” and that’s exactly it: The Counting Crows are at their best when they write soothing, sensitive music, in touch with a certain childish naivete that can spin any ray of light into a story full of gooey nostalgia. What the Crows seem to know here is that their sentiment has always been a mask for the anxiety of transformation: “when the Rat Kings go away, we’ll never be the same again.” Ultimately, they succeed by fully embracing their influences, letting their listeners wear the proverbial mask instead of themselves.
In straightforward summation: I don’t love this record, but I do think it is good. It is a little strange in its structuring, with two “suites” of songs written at different times creating some problems in the record’s overall cohesion. This isn’t to say that the sound is disjointed, becuase it’s not; it’s more the fact that material from the suite released in 2021 is a actually song suite, and the newly recorded material is not so. The first half of the record, with the newer music, is more of a hit-and-miss collection of songs, whereas the back half honestly feels like one long musical piece, full seamless transitions, carefully placed crescendos, and just a lot of dynamic flow between the tracks. Nothing here reaches the heights of the band’s best music, but it does feel like the best, most authentic music the band could make today, and for that, it is probably worth checking out if you carry a soft spot for the Counting Crows, especially if you enjoy the rootsier side of their sound.
Best Tracks: "Boxcar"; "Elevator Boots"; "Angel of 14th Street"
Actual Rating: 3.3/5
