"Living Well Is The Best Revenge" has, on top of Buck's crunchy arpeggios, the truly great tension-producing effect of Mike Mills descending bass run that divebombs toward the first verse. It reminded me of Entwistle's four-string madness on The Who's "The Real Me." "Supernatural Superserious" has a great, chunky guitar riff. The title track makes great use of dissonance, both with the opening four-note suspension and the guitar chords that slash through the chorus.
"Sing For The Submarine" revisits the early Athens sound before laying in some heavy, almost art-rock bombast. "Hollow Man" starts off seeming to be a piano ballad of sorts, with the idea "I've been lost inside my head..." pulling us in — before the anthemic chorus takes hold. "Houston" brings out the traditional R.E.M. fascination with emotional darkness, the protagonist trying to push away the negative thoughts in favor of positive memories.
The loud guitar sounds (Note to the producers of the world: back off on the compression, will ya?!!) might make a person think that Accelerate is Monster, Part II. Not so, because most of the songs lack the glammy attitude of Monster. Sure, some folks are as annoyed with "I'm Gonna DJ" as they were with "What's The Frequency Kenneth?" I can't help that (I also like both songs). Besides, is that song more annoying than Stipe's rhyming of "apostles" with "nostrils" during "Living Well's The Best Revenge"?
Perhaps the most shocking moment on Accelerate occurs during "Until The Day Is Done." Is that a mandolin I hear. I could have sworn I read an article in Spin where Peter Buck said he'd sworn off the instrument. Welcome back!
What has happened:
R.E.M. has proven us all wrong. We were absolutely certain that Around The Sun was the sure fire, Athens, GA death rattle. We were wrong. If you listen closely, Accelerate pulls a musical thread through just about every era of this band. It makes me reminisce for a bit before concluding that all of these decades of change have been worth it.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
Good write-up, especially about "fan's preconceptions." I have read way too many reviews of this album by long-time fans and they all seem to run a similar track. I am hoping to see what someone new to the band or someone who didn't have R.E.M. at a key time in their life thinks of it, which gets harder to do the longer a band has been around.
2 - Chris
This is the first R.E.M. album I've listened to all the way through, and I quite enjoy it.
3 - Josh Hathaway
Good review, Mark. I think there is a place for "listening" history and "personal" history in the conversation, but too much of either can cause people to miss something. I contend there are similarities to Monster but they're not the same record; they are both good records, so there is another similarity.
Mandolin pops up a couple times and I quite like it.
4 - Kevin Eagan
I've always been neutral to R.E.M, and certainly haven't had the same experiences with the band as you have. With that said, I'm starting to really like this album. Hopefully, we'll see an R.E.M. resurgence for years to come.
5 - Tom Johnson
It's a good album, for sure. I like it a lot - and a lot more than expected post Around the Sun. It sounds like the band is really trying again after years of coasting, and this is coming from someone who really liked Hi-Fi, parts of Up, and Reveal.
I think I'm in the same boat as Kevin - neutral. I don't live by REM at all. I like them a lot, love a lot of their songs, but they aren't a band I live through, as many other things I listen to are. I don't have so much invested in their music. So I don't know what kind of longevity Accelerate will have with me. I am not feeling that pull (gravity's pull?) that makes me want to hear it over and over. I picked up Reckoning over the weekend - believe it or not, I have never owned this (I know, shame on me) - and I get that pull from that album. (It's not nostalgia - I didn't give a dump about REM until Out of Time came along.)
Speaking of fan reactions, one I'm real tired of seeing is the one about how if Bill Berry was back in the band everything would be different and better and back to the old ways. No, plain and simple. I've even seen some suggest that Bill Reiflin's drumming is inferior. Sorry, wrong again - Reiflin is a great drummer (he's worked with Robert Fripp and Fripp does not work with slouch-drummers - he has difficult relationships with drummers, so why put up with inferior ones?) REM's musical issues are not sourced from the drum throne. It's simply a matter of a band aging and fans wanting more of whatever album they joined in at.
6 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites and Boston.com.
7 - Kit O'Toole
It seems like with every new R.E.M. release, their PR machine hypes it as their "comeback," their "return to form," and their "return to rock." As a longtime fan, I must admit that I became disenchanted with them from "Monster" onward. My first exposure to them was in high school, when a friend taped "Life's Rich Pageant" for me. Subsequently I bought all their earlier albums and later loved "Green," "Out of Time" and "Automatic for the People." Since I feel like the group was a part of my formative years, it's hard for me to divorce their earlier material from their recent stuff. Logically I know that I need to listen to their latest album without this bias, but somehow I've found it difficult. The PR machine's continual insistence that each new release will propel R.E.M. to their former glory doesn't help, either. Great piece; it gave me a lot to consider!