Track Listing

1. Living Well Is The Best Revenge
2. Man-Sized Wreath
3. Supernatural Superserious
4. Hollow Man
5. Houston
6. Accelerate
7. Until The Day Is Done
8. Mr. Richards
9. Sing For The Submarine
10. Horse To Water
11. I'm Gonna DJ

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #417 in Music
• Released on: 2008-04-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
In the decade since the departure of drummer Bill Berry, R.E.M. could seem at times schizophrenic. Their albums of the era, which veered from the experimentalism of Up and reaffirmation of Reveal to 2004's more diffuse, reflective Around the Sun, often stood in stark contrast to the vibrancy of their live act. But here the alt-rock godfathers have resolved that dichotomy with their most focused and satisfying album in over a decade; a collection that doesn't so much revisit the bracing ethos of the band's '80s coming-of-age, as boil it down to its essence and supercharge it with the energy of their contemporary stage shows. That sensibility is evident from the opening track, "Living Well's the Best Revenge," where Peter Buck's aggressive, distortion-drenched riffs and Michael Stipe's gruff snarl set the tone for "Mansized Wreath," "Horse to Water," and "Supernatural Serious"; rockers that bristle with the abandonment and aggressive energy of a band half their tenure. Yet it's no mere blast-from-the-past. The inclusion of the band's recent touring musicians (Scott McCaughey on second guitar and drummer Bill Rieflin) into the session mix, as well as working out much of the material live onstage in Dublin, has yielded something more sonically akin to R.E.M. 2.2. Stipe's penchant for the lyrically opaque has been largely supplanted by an edgy, articulate passion that variously explores "Houston'"s displaced Katrina refugees, the bluegrass-tinged "Until the Day is Done," and the more typical, quiet self-examination of "Hollow Man," before exploding in the album's unlikely, upbeat elegy "I'm Gonna DJ," where singer and band find renewed hope in not only music, but themselves. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Overhyped
Accelerate can be one of those albums which fans, upset with R.E.M.'s last few releases, may judge too highly, throwing out words like comeback just to describe a vague adult-rock, easy going consistency in a way which almost insults some of their finer intricacies.

New and Old
Hailed even pre-release as a return to R.E.M.'s roots, and the press laid so much credence in this thought - it would kind of be hard to live up to.

The result - they do and they don't.

Is 'Accelerate' the new 'Fables of the Reconstruction'? No. But I didn't expect it to be. But on the upside, it's also not one of their last two or three releases either. While those were not horrid, they were just there and not horribly well thought out.

I enjoyed 'Accelerate' - more than any disk since 'Automatic for the People' - but that is not to compare those two disks. The new release has much much much more guitar - much more of a core band feel. It is a welcome retro feel, but it is not 1980 - make no mistake.

I really enjoy the first four songs - especially "Hallow Man" and "Supernatural Superserious". Michael Stipe's vocal abilities haven't changed too much over the years, but what I never hear anyone go on about is how much Mike Mills' harmonies really help make the band. I've always been a fan of Peter Buck's guitar playing.

'Accelerate' isn't as fun as 'Document', 'Reckoning' or 'Murmur' - but it's not meant to be. Of course, I just might be stuck in my own nostalgia. But 'Accelerate' takes the energy of the old R.E.M. and sticks them in the present.

"Monster" for the MySpace Generation
I've stuck it out with REM for decades, loved "Up" and "Reveal" for the grandiose Radioheadizations that they were, and even listened to "The Lifting" more than once if you can believe that. So there's my required REM backstory. But as meaningless as that pedigree is, even people who have never heard this band before should be down on this turkey. Focus-grouped and polished for the MySpace page, "Accelerate" tries way too hard to convince us that "MICHAEL BLOGGING FROM SARAJEVO!! LIVE ALBUM MERCH VID CLIPS OF THE ONE I LOVE FROM LATVIA!!!1!1!" is a good substitute for substance. The ethereal, mysterious quality associated with this band's music apparently went the way of Bob Dole candidacies. What's left is an empty shell of a band whose purpose is as strained as its 2:30-minute jam sessions jazzed up as "rockin'" (hint: if your rock album has alot of songs in 3/4 time, you're not rocking very hard... waltzing rock songs are for Jeremy Enigk). There are two songs on here that I find remotely interesting ("Living Well" and "Hollow Men", if you care), and none of the others I want to listen to again. But true to Michael's green sensibilities, I have found reuse for the CD cover as a place to keep my tax receipts.

I'm very happy that the "band" (at this point, who's counting or caring) are enjoying the cheering crowds in Ukraine and Uzbekistan as they crank out the umpteenth version of "Orange Crush". I tried very hard to get into this album from a fresh perspective but was left with all sorts of philosophical questions about the big picture, none of which are very good and none of which we should be asking about a band that was once the standard of creative excellence that every young band aspired to, even Nirvana. Now they're aspiring to move units, fill iPods, and safely bridge the gap between graying Gen-Xers reliving their college years and their OMG kids. They're as inconsequential as their long-dormant peers would have been if they had somehow thought it necessary to stick around far past their prime (can you imagine the Replacements at this point?). I guess we need stuff like this to provide a counterpoint to in the form of something that truly matters, and for that I am grateful. But this is the last time they're going to sucker me into believing that they do.