March 23rd, 2008
R.E.M. - Accelerate ****
R.E.M. - Accelerate - Warner ****
R.E.M. fans have a lot in common with Catholics - there are lots of lapsed followers out there. Born with the cheap, tinny brilliance of ‘Radio Free Europe’, their finest work (songs) belong to the 80s, culminating with Green in 1989. Many fans´ interest dwindled after Automatic for the People and the patchy Monster. This decade’s releases were identically bland and haemorrhaged even more fans. So last year when the band previewed new material in Dublin, even those who had renounced them got excited. Could this be the return to form we´d been promised for years? In a word, yes. This has a switched-on sparkle, reminiscent of R.E.M. of old. No coincidence then, that Michael Stipe references classics like ‘I Believe’ and ‘Feeling Gravity´s Pull’ on homage-laden ‘Sing for the Submarine’.
All the way through there are flashes of those brilliant IRS years, but this is the sound of a band channelling their early energy rather indulging in nostalgic retreads. One chorus echoes the contemplative urge of ‘Swan Swan Hummingbird’ and ‘Hollow Man’ nods to ‘Sitting Still’. Perhaps the most inspired aspect of the album is its brevity. True to its title, Accelerate zips past in 34 foot-tapping minutes. Revved-up rock-outs dominate, like ‘Living Well´s the Best Revenge’ and single ‘Supernatural Superserious’ with their fiery guitar licks. But ballads are something R.E.M. have always excelled at, and ‘Until the Day is Done’ has a folky, frontier feel.
Stipe´s gravelly timbre is ageing well. Perennially outspoken, there are political observations: ‘On Houston’, lilting Hammond and Buck´s trademark Mandolin underscore a post-Katrina statement:”If the storm doesn´t kill me/the government will”. Always a ferocious live band, these songs drip with vigour, even the couple of duds (the title track and ‘I´m Gonna DJ’). In 2008, they´ve found their mojo, reclaiming the pulsing, polished sound they once did so well. ‘Sing For the Submarine’ has a slightly wistful, pining tone, but you know this is a band looking forward, not back. “This is where it begins”, they sing on one track and there´s no more heartening proclamation about where R.E.M. are now.
Download Tracks: ‘Until the Day Is Done’. ‘Sing for the Submarine’. ‘Man sized Wreath.’
Website: R.E.M.
Accelerate website
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Did you see them in the Olympia? Ooo, I wish I had.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:04 am
I lost them after Green, or maybe they lost me.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Jo, I had just had my son about two weeks before so didn’t go. My brothers were there and said the new tracks sounded great.
Bock, my first ever gig was the Green Tour at RDS in 1989 and they were brilliant. This album is much more like the stuff they did in the 80s than anything they’ve made in over a decade. Give it a shot…
March 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Maybe I’ll do that.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:42 am
“the patchy Monster”
Patchy?! I thought Monster was the *only* good REM album. I’ll have to re-listen now.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Annie, that’s just one gal’s opinion. I think the last good album they made was Automatic for the People. Their best work is definitely from the 80s. Check out Document, Murmer and Life’s Rich Pageant.
Bock, this album reminds me a lot of LRP.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
They were playing good songs well into the 90’s but I lost them over the last few years. Great to hear they are back on form. Saw them in Slane during the Monster tour - first major gig and what a baptism of fire. Oasis were there pre-Morning Glory and we all thought ‘what a shower of knackey w%nk$rs. Missed the Olympia and dont think I could handle the Oxegen crowd a second year in a row so God knows when Ill see them again.
March 26th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
No, you’re right, it is a bit “patchy” but in a good way, I think. Like it sounds a bit like a patchwork quilt, all knitted together out of lots of different bits of material.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
UP is a wonderful album, shamefully overlooked and New Adventures had E Bow the letter possibly their best song ever. Accelerate is indeed a much needed boost though. Love it!
March 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
incidentally here is my two pence worth
http://frmckenzie.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/album-of-the-month-march-2008/
March 30th, 2008 at 10:30 am
All of which just goes to show that there are as many views on best/worst album as there are fans. I am one of the hordes who had never heard of R.E.M. before Out of Time, though technically Green was the first album of theirs I bought (the day before Out of Time…). It’s natural enough then that I mentally divide their stuff into that period, and ‘before’ and ‘after.’
‘Before’ I think of as having some of their best moments, particularly in Lifes Rich Pageant and Document, but equally I thought most of the early albums had more weak songs than Green, Out of Time or Automatic for the People. (The second half of Document, for example, I’ve never really warmed to.) Plus, a sucker for the surface of things, the necessarily less polished production of some of the early albums grates with me a bit.
As for ‘After’, like most R.E.M. newbies I wanted to love and defend all their subsequent output, but had eventually to admit that Monster, bar a few brilliant bits, was a let-down. I still highly rate New Adventures in Hi-Fi, though it’s far too long; but with fourteen or so songs on there, you could still cut it down to a pretty flawless eight- or ten-track collection, which is more than you can say for Monster or indeed Up (though I know that album has its stout defenders).
My own aberration is in being very fond of Reveal, perhaps something to do with its sunny, relaxed disposition, and it was that album that made me think ‘return to form!!’ after the downward grind of Up. Around the Sun though, put paid to that. I mean we are agreed - surely we are agreed - that that was a shockingly bad album by any standards… or does it have its fans too? I remember sitting with it in the weeks after purchase, continually waiting for it to click and for me to ‘get it’, and I never did. Just awful.
So fast-forward to tomorrow when I can buy Accelerate. Don’t let me down (again) boys!