Hard Candy : Counting Crows : Review : Rolling Stone

Like so many bands currently favored by major labels and radio, Counting Crows have the uncanny ability to make music that sounds familiar the first time you hear it. Throughout Hard Candy, the melodies and chord changes move securely to where hit records have gone daringly before, even as the band (now seven players) broadens its stylistic scope. This is a supremely confident, fastidiously arranged, masterfully played record with a slightly prefabricated feel. The Crows' newly catholic instrumentation achieves moments of finespun beauty, particularly on the Burt Bacharach homage "Butterfly in Reverse," but Adam Duritz's ever-pained vibrato doesn't soften enough to match the orchestra's gentility. The title cut strings together the Byrds, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty with a shamelessness that renders the lyrics' sincerity suspect: Can Duritz really be that hung up on his former flame when he sounds as if he's just singing along to his record collection?