There was a six-year gap between Hard Candy and the newest album from Counting Crows, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings and the band has emerged from the recording hiatus swinging hard enough that the record carries a warning - no, not one of those Tipper Gore-inspired parental advisory warnings. This comes with a warning from lead singer Adam Duritz:

"Don't make that same mistake you've all been making for four records," he said.  "I've written four records of examples of why you should stay a mile from me."

Anyone who thought contributing a song to the Shrek 2 soundtrack was a sign of happier times ahead was obviously wrong. This is not an album of banal platitudes set to happy little melodies. At one point Duritz wondered if this was really the kind of record he wanted to release.

"I didn't release that record because I thought, 'Oh, wow, you're a fuckin' wreck. Why would you want to release this record?'" he said. "I released it because I thought, 'Oh, wow, you're a fuckin' wreck.  That's kind of interesting.  Everybody should see that.'"

Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is an ambitious effort from a band that has never been afraid to push itself.  It is a vivid snapshot inside the mind of someone who desperately wants to make that connection but is perpetually thwarted. Thwarted, in this case, by a mental illness.

This is not a concept album in the prog rock sense, it's two separate albums sharing the same CD. The band even worked with two different producers for each album. Gil Norton produced the visceral, electrified Saturday Nights, Brian Deck produced the contemplative, somber Sunday Mornings.  There is no chronological narrative a la Tommy, but when placed together the two albums paint a picture. 

During our interview, he gave listeners an unofficial guide to make their way through the record, particularly the songs on Sunday Mornings. 

"Saturday Nights is about going insane and becoming untethered from the world and losing your mind because pain is too much and numbness is good," he said.  "Sunday Mornings is about - you wake up numb and you don't want to be that way anymore.  You're trying to change but you don't have the skills to do it.  You can't stand the closeness and when you try to feel it hurts."

The insanity on Saturday Nights might seem fun on the surface, but as you listen to Sunday Mornings you realize that Duritz isn't talking about being the life of the party.  The numbing of the mind is about escape and not fun.  It's not even about the fun kind of escape.  If listeners miss that, Sunday Mornings is there to underscore the point.  Perhaps no song on the record is a better illustration of that action-reaction relationship between the two than "On Almost Any Sunday Morning."