Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

The band stretches out in some new directions on the trance-y 'Washington Square' and incorporates psychedelic overtones into 'Insignificant' and 'Le Ballet d'Or.' 'You Can't Count on Me' sounds like the flip side of a Bruce Springsteen love song, and such tracks as '1492,' 'Cowboys' and 'Come Around' rock with sweeping dynamic energy.

Adam Duritz and company haven’t sounded so committed, so determined, so tuneful, in years.

The disc's first half, produced by Pixies vet Gil Norton, is surprisngly fast and scrappy. But the pace slackens in the mellower remainder, produced by Brian Deck. [28 Mar 2008, p.65]

On the harder-rocking half, Duritz is nearly emo-esque in his self-loathing.... The disk's Sunday Morning half, is more acoustic, quieter, reflective. But after the epic bender that precedes it, it's also just kind of a drag. [Apr 2008, p.78]

The hair-shirt single "You Can't Count on Me" and the cheerily grim "Hanging Tree" are little masterpieces of pop craft, their arrangements and Duritz's invitingly petulant wail often echoing golden-era R.E.M. Sometimes that craft is enough: The latter song is so packed with guitar fireworks that its buzz-killing lines about freezing to death barely register.

There are moments--notably 'You Can't Count On me'--but the band behind him are wringing diminishing returns from their polished country-rock. [May 2008, p.92]

It’s an album of extremes, often capturing the far fringes of the band’s sound, with little in between to act as a buffer.

Considered as a whole, or even as two self-serving parts, Saturday Nights And Sunday Mornings is so generic and unenlightening that you will probably not remember hearing it within an hour or so.

Listened to--as the band recommend--in one sitting, it is trudging and effortful.

The electric guitar interludes sound obligatory, particularly when paired with lyrics that don't approach immediate or visceral