R.E.M. in visibly happier timesThe massively overtold story in the music press is that R.E.M. have been rubbish if not since Automatic for the People then at least since drummer Bill Berry left in 1997 and that Accelerate is the album that finally has them sounding good again.
To be honest, that's not strictly true. While R.E.M. have gone through a few chameleonic shifts in sound since their 1992 watermark, they have never been anything less than interesting, and the turn of the century twin electronic-tinged albums 'Up' and 'Reveal' stand among their finest work, if not their most cohesive or impulsive.
A more accurate story, if one really needs to be written to make these things interesting, would be that their last record, the flabby and sometimes soulless 'Around The Sun' was an uncharacteristic dip for the band and so 'Accelerate' is in fact just R.E.M. getting back on track. This is, lest we forget, their fourteenth record, and to have only one bad record out of fourteen is pretty exceptional for any band.
Nevertheless, 'Accelerate' is a very different beast from its three predecessors. It's faster and much shorter, for a start; their shortest record yet, in fact. It's a rediscovery of the the 'less is more' post-punk aesthetic that R.E.M. were raised upon. It's a loud, chest-beating guitar record, political, sarcastic, wide-eyed and hopeful.
It touches upon almost everything that's great about R.E.M.; you get Mike Mills providing more backing vocals than he has in a long time, Peter Buck jangling and crunching more than he has in a long time, and Micheal Stipe singing about things that really, genuinely piss him off more than he has since 'Document'.
I say almost everything, however, because while this record is strong and tough like the Milkybar kid, it is lacking in terms of emotional intensity, like the Milkybar kid. Beyond the twin peaks of the angry 'Living Well's The Best Revenge' and the straight-up hopefest of 'I'm Gonna DJ', there's not a whole lot of emotional variation; there's not a whole lot of beauty. True, 'Sing For the Submarine' has waves of haunting backing vocals set to an 'Up'-style waltz, but the record is for a very specific, charged-up mindset. The trade-off is thus; you get the best R.E.M. record for a fair old while, but you have to be 100% in the right mood for it. You have to be gutted at the state of the world but not too downtrodden and for some people, that's probably a difficult proposition.
It's great news that R.E.M. have decided to play to their strengths instead of always trying to fight them, but they shouldn't forget that they picked up a few really interesting tricks in the past decade that they shouldn't need to apologise for, even if they didn't always signal commercial success.
To be honest, that's not strictly true. While R.E.M. have gone through a few chameleonic shifts in sound since their 1992 watermark, they have never been anything less than interesting, and the turn of the century twin electronic-tinged albums 'Up' and 'Reveal' stand among their finest work, if not their most cohesive or impulsive.
A more accurate story, if one really needs to be written to make these things interesting, would be that their last record, the flabby and sometimes soulless 'Around The Sun' was an uncharacteristic dip for the band and so 'Accelerate' is in fact just R.E.M. getting back on track. This is, lest we forget, their fourteenth record, and to have only one bad record out of fourteen is pretty exceptional for any band.
Nevertheless, 'Accelerate' is a very different beast from its three predecessors. It's faster and much shorter, for a start; their shortest record yet, in fact. It's a rediscovery of the the 'less is more' post-punk aesthetic that R.E.M. were raised upon. It's a loud, chest-beating guitar record, political, sarcastic, wide-eyed and hopeful.
It touches upon almost everything that's great about R.E.M.; you get Mike Mills providing more backing vocals than he has in a long time, Peter Buck jangling and crunching more than he has in a long time, and Micheal Stipe singing about things that really, genuinely piss him off more than he has since 'Document'.
I say almost everything, however, because while this record is strong and tough like the Milkybar kid, it is lacking in terms of emotional intensity, like the Milkybar kid. Beyond the twin peaks of the angry 'Living Well's The Best Revenge' and the straight-up hopefest of 'I'm Gonna DJ', there's not a whole lot of emotional variation; there's not a whole lot of beauty. True, 'Sing For the Submarine' has waves of haunting backing vocals set to an 'Up'-style waltz, but the record is for a very specific, charged-up mindset. The trade-off is thus; you get the best R.E.M. record for a fair old while, but you have to be 100% in the right mood for it. You have to be gutted at the state of the world but not too downtrodden and for some people, that's probably a difficult proposition.
It's great news that R.E.M. have decided to play to their strengths instead of always trying to fight them, but they shouldn't forget that they picked up a few really interesting tricks in the past decade that they shouldn't need to apologise for, even if they didn't always signal commercial success.
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