My taste in music is very much influenced by what my parents listened to when I was growing up, and this was one in their collection. When I left home, this was the first album I asked them to copy for me, and I am so glad they did as it has become my favourite album without a doubt.

The music on the album is simply superb. It is very beautiful, with haunting lyrics and wonderful sounds. The songs are kind of abstract in the way that its not immediately apparent what the meaning is, and I guess different people could have varying oppinions as to what the songs are actually about. In this review I will attempt to explain what the songs mean to me personally.

I started to listen to this album properly at a lowpoint in my life and I found that I could relate to many of the lyrics and feelings portrayed in the songs. I find that many if not all of them represent insecurity, which I felt deeply at that time and this is perhaps one of the reasons I love this album so much.

The album opens with "Round Here". This song reminds me of the lifestyle I was leading. It describes a girl who packed a case and left town in search of something that was missing from her life. What she finds instead is a relationship that she is not truely happy with, and a life spent wasting time away doing nothing much in particular. I relate to it in this way because this was how i was feeling.

"Omaha" is about how life is so pointless. We can go around making new starts and promising to change things, yet everything is still the same as it always was so you may as well ask for your money back. I'm not quite sure what Omaha has to do with this but it is a great song.

The best known track from the album is "Mr Jones". It is a bit more cheerful sounding than the rest of the album, but the theme of insecurity remains. It is about a couple of lonely guys out drinking and dreaming of being loved, wanted and popular. They both believe they will achieve these things once they achieve fame. I can just imagine the pair of them sitting in a bar somewhere having a drunken conversation and saying many of the things in this song.

"Perfect Blue Buildings" is about a man who has visions of the perfect life he wishes he had. He is searching for meaning in his life and although he has these ideas about how he wants his life to be, he can't see how he can make them a reality and he wants someone to help him get out of the downward spiral he finds himself in. All the while the image of his perfect lifestyle is there in his mind, and he feels trapped. The line "How am I gonna keep myself away from me?" repeated over and over at the end of the song emphasises the helplessness he feels about himself and his situation. Another song I can relate to which just summed up so well some of the things I felt.

"Anna Begins" is one of my favourite songs from the album, and in fact one of my favourite songs period. It is about a man who is in a relationship with a woman who he doesn't love, however he feels that he can't leave her as it is all he knows and he keeps telling himself that there is something between them that is worth it all, although he doesn't truely believe this. "You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself to make yourself forget, to make yourself forget." Everyone who has ever been in a loveless relationship must be able to relate to that line, It just captures the feeling so accurately. The whole song describes the situation and the feelings from this mans point of view so well. It is an amazing song that describes exactly how I felt at times in my marriage, I can relate to it so well, which is really why I like it.

The next song, "Time and Time Again" is about a relationship that was destroyed by jealousy. The guy in question drove away the person he loved because of his own actions, stemming from his jealousy and insecurities. The lyrics really bring the pain that he feels to life as he clings to the hope that she might come back to him, and that one day he might be happy. The way that he is so frustrated with himself is portrayed so brilliantly you can almost feel it with him. A great song.

"Rain King is one of my least favourite songs on the album. It is about a man who thinks he deserves more from his life than he has got. He is in an unhappy relationship, and also having an affair and he is just fed up with his life in general. He is sick of being taken for a ride he thinks he should be in better place than he is. I think it is a rather blokey song and I don't relate to it much, being female. I do like it, just not as much as the others.

"Sullivan Street" is about a man who is taking a trip down memory lane, remembering how things were in his life when he meant nothing to anybody, and he now has a girlfriend, adn things between them are great. Almost. The lyrics and the feeling in this song lead me to wonder why things aren't quite as good as he thinks they should be in his life. Again, the insecurity theme is present, although it is only subtly hinted at this time. "Its almost everything I need."

"Ghost Train" represents an endless search for love, and the person searching for it is unsure it even exists yet desperately wants it. He is looking for a woman he met and hoping. The line "Love is a ghost train howling on the radio" conjurs up images of a man haunted by the lovesongs he hears but yet is unable to find the feelings the songs portray to him. I do feel that this song is one of the weaker tracks, although its still a great song.

"Raining in Baltimore" is slightly less abstract than the other songs and thus is easier to understand. It is about a man who left his wife at home and went away with a circus. He is now stuck 3500 miles away from her in a strange town in the rain. He can't get through to her on the phone and he can't get home. He is thinking about maybe getting a car or taking a flight home and he is dreaming about being somewhere sunny or in a city he loves or anywhere but where he is now. He misses his wife desperately but he feels that he is stuck with his life and he concludes that he needs a raincoat. So many people find themselves in a similar situation, not that they are stuck in the rain working in a circus, but that they are stuck in a rut in their lives. It is so common for someone who feels that way to try and make the bad situation more comfortable for themselves ratehr than change the situation to one they are happy with, and thats what this song is all about. It is a beautiful song, very relevant to many peoples lives. It is definitely one of my favourites.

" Murder of One" is another one of my favourite songs. This time it is about a man who is in love with a woman he has grown up with and he has watched her get stuck in an unhappy relationship. He is trying to tell her that she is wasting her life with a man who doesn't love her and she should set herself free and change things for herself. He is dreaming of her freedom. He says he had a dream about her walking in the hills, representing her freedom, and that he "will walk along these hillsides in the summer 'neath the sunshine" but be "feathered by the moonlight falling down on him". If that isn't beautiful imagery then I don't know what is.

All the songs are sung in such a beautiful way with so much feeling and emotion dripping from each line. The lyrics are exquisite and really capture each feeling so accurately, be it emotional pain, loneliness, longing, desperation or heartache. The songs each sound as though they are the personal thoughts from inside the mind of the perosn in question, as opposed to a simple description of feelings and events. This really helps you to feel the powerful emotions portrayed.

The music that supports the lyrics in each song consists of mainly guitars and drums, although it is never loud and heavy. The sounds really help to bring out the emotions of the songs with "Mr Jones" and "Rain King" the most cheerful sounding music, although it seems to sound more hopeful than cheerful really, and this is fitting for these songs. The rest of the album is pretty much melancholy, with each peice of music complementing the feeling of the particular song.

The voice of Adam Duritz, the singer, is very unique in its sound and its ability to bring the feelings to life. Bursts of powerful singing, sometimes close to shouting, help to show the frustration and dispair in some of the tracks, and in other places, reducing his voice to little more than a whisper enhances the helpless feeling in many of the songs.

I really can't do this album justice without actually playing it to you. It is simply amazing, and I have heard no other music quite like it. The songs evoke such powerful emotions in me that I have been reduced from a perfectly happy mood to floods of tears. Equally though when I am feeling low, the songs are so powerful that somehow they manage to pick me up again and make me feel better about myself. Perhaps its because they remind of how awful I felt about myself and I realise how far I have come in my life to the point I am at now where I feel in controll of myself, my emotions and my life and I can say that I am truly happy.

I cannot recommend this album highly enough. It is pure excellence, condensed and fit onto a CD. I defy you to listen to it and not find a song you can relate to. It is the one album that should be in everyones collection and it beats me why it is not more well known. It is priced £11.99 on amazon, or find it in a record shop. It is identifiable by its orangey yellow cover and "Counting Crows August and Everything After" written by what looks like the worlds leakiest fountain pen.