Often harshly misrepresented as plod-rockers with doughy imaginations, Counting Crows are a much more intriguing, melancholy proposition than sceptics realise. With the unlikely figure of Adam Duritz rustling up romantic, aching lyrics and the band building on all the right foundations of US rock history, they can reach peaks of sincere intensity. They've yet to surpass their 1993 debut August And Everything After, from which the beautiful "Anna Begins" and addictive "Mr Jones" star here, but they still have silvery spurts, as beguiling new songs "Friend Of The Devil" and "She Don't Want Nobody Near" prove. They still count for something.

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