After I heard REM’s ‘Accelerate for the first time, I did three things. 1. I looked over my notes and research from the rehearsal shows to see which songs I’d heard before. (About half of them.)2. I listened to some old REM to see where it fit in a big picture of the band.3. I listened to it again.The first is important because the story of this album kind of begins there. The five night residency in the Olympia Theatre was, for all intents and purposes, to preview the then-untitled new album. It wasn’t a completely unprecedented move – ‘New Adventures In Hi-Fi’ was recorded on the ‘Monster’ tour, and a good portion of the songs from those sessions were tried out along the way.The second is important because that’s always the question with REM – where does this fit? Everyone has ideas of the ‘eras’ of Michael, Mike, Peter and the Bills (Berry and on ‘Accelerate’, Rieflin), be it IRS and Warners, Mumbly Michael or Enunciating Michael, Rock, Pop and Electronic REM or album-by-album, or any one of dozen of not necessarily consecutive album groupings.The third is important because of a very simple rule – if you don’t want to listen to it again it’s not a great album. It can still be a
good album – I’ve heard plenty of records over the years that I need never hear again, but my life is enriched for having heard them. Those were good albums. To be great, you need to want to hear it again. And ‘Accelerate’ is a great album.Last July I wrote this:
The new songs performed were exceptionally raw, and to my ears sound all the better for it. There’s none of the electronica or effects that permeated ‘Up’ or ‘Reveal’ or ‘Around The Sun’ Lyrically the songs are reminiscent of ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’ while the simple, stripped-down guitar/bass/drums/vocals sound is everything that was right about side 2 of ‘Monster’. There are two slightly acoustic sounding songs, one of which could easily have been on ‘Out of Time’. It’s not easy to tell which song is which from the above list, as a) some titles are most definitely temporary and b) the lyrics don’t necessarily match the titles. I can deduce that ‘Peter’s Open E’ was most likely one of the more acoustic ones, as it was credited as being Peter’s favourite, and as having a title from scripture that was considered for use for a different song. ‘Staring Down The Barrel…’ is one of the heavier ones, as is ‘Horse to Water’. Most people I talked to afterwards said that, based on what they’ve heard so far their expectations are for the new album to sound like ‘New Adventures in Hi-Fi’, though at the very least it seems that a more ‘rock’ sound than the last two albums is expected.For the most part, I stand by it. I don’t think it sounds like ‘New Adventures In Hi-Fi’ anymore, nor is there the raw sound of side two of ‘Monster’, although this is no great loss. I still think there’s a hint of ‘Fables of The Reconstruction’ off it – it’s hard not to when ‘Sing For The Submarine’ sounds very like ‘Old Man Kensey’ and lyrically references ‘Feeling Gravity’s Pull’. Really though, the album fits nowhere. And everywhere.There are better guitarists than Peter Buck, better singers and songwriters than Michael Stipe and better bassists than Mike Mills, but it’s the sum of the parts that make REM a great band, and ‘Accelerate’ a great album. Buck has found his guitar again and storms through the songs with vengeance and purpose. Mills’ bass threatens to steal the show at times – never as good as he was on ‘Ignoreland’ (but then I think that’s one of the all time great bass pieces), but a perfect timepiece and companion to Bill Rieflin’s precision drumming, and Stipe... well, Michael Stipe has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. It’s used to full effect here – when he sings about love, like on first single ‘Supernatural Superserious’ or the excellently angsty ‘Hollow Man’ ("Believe in me, believe in nothing/Corner me and make me something/I've become the hollow man,/Have I become the hollow man I see?"), he’s singing about it like a 48 year old man who seems to believe he knows as much about the subject as a teenager. More political songs like ‘Man Sized Wreath’ ("Turning on the TV and what do I see?/A pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me - wow!") are full of the righteous indignation of a man who “is tired of politicians telling me what to be afraid of.”It’s probably an overstatement to say that this album is unlike anything that REM have ever done – in fact it’s an out-and-out lie, because every song is distinctly and instantly recognizable as REM. Everyone seems to be using the phrase ‘return to form’ – I must have read those words about a hundred times in relation to this album – and really, it is. ‘Accelerate’ is so much better than the last three albums that it’s difficult to describe it any other way. I don’t think it’s a classic album in the way that I feel ‘Automatic For The People’ is – but it’s a departure from ‘Up’, ‘Reveal’ or ‘Around The Sun’ (which Stipe describes as ‘sub-REM’ in "the interview with Mogger indiepixie":http://mog.com/indiepixie/blog_post/149263). What REM have created is a rock album – their first, and best, in twelve years.
Post Script: The album's out on April 1st, but if you have iLike on Facebook or iTunes, you can hear it from Monday March 24th. For further listening, first single ‘Supernatural Superserious’ is streaming on "Michael Goldberg’s MOG here":http://mog.com/Michael_Goldberg/blog_post/142853, and I can’t emphasise enough how much you should watch "indiepixie’s interview with Michael Stipe here":http://mog.com/indiepixie/blog_post/149263. REM also play the Apple Store in London next Wednesday (March 26th) but tickets are apparently like gold dust. I’ll be in town, so look for me lurking outside trying to catch an earful.
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