:: Record Review

R.E.M.

Accelerate
(Warner Bros.; 2008)

Rating: 80%
Combined Rating: 75%

Careful CMG readers will note that this paragraph will not mark the first time that yours truly has discussed his girlfriend (now fiancé!) Jessica in a music review. That’s because she has good taste. She also owns as many R.E.M. records as I do (i.e. all of them). And yet her often stubborn nature prevents her from listening to good shit; take this recent conversation:

(11:30 on a Saturday morning, I’ve just put Life’s Rich Pageant [1986] on)

Jessica: “What the hell is the point of another R.E.M. record when nothing they could possibly do would be a fraction as good as this?”

Me: “Baby, have you even listened to the new R.E.M.?”

J: “It’s immaterial.”

D: “You realize that virtually every R.E.M. record save Automatic For the People (1992) is inferior to Pageant.”

J: “Accelerate is immaterial.”

D: “Actually it’s really good.”

J: “And really immaterial.”

This is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life. But if any fanbase has earned the right to be really skeptical it’s R.E.M.’s, because R.E.M. is a “band” who’ve essentially (in the studio at least) sounded like a Michael Stipe solo laptop project for the past ten years. While this critic has been a staunch apologist as far as Up (1998) and Reveal (2001) (“The Lifting,” OMG) were concerned, Around the Sun (2004) required Job levels of faith on the part of the listener. Transcending depths of “bad” to utterly confounding, Sun sounded like no two members of R.E.M. were ever in the same room together when it was recorded, and it also managed to contain the lamest Q-Tip guest spot in recorded history (no small feat that). Recent Michael Stipe interviews have found him repeatedly admitting that R.E.M. “lost focus” in the studio while taking great pains not to throw producer Pat McCarthy under the bus, which is admirable, though it certainly wouldn’t have killed Mr. McCarthy to say, “Hey, assholes, why don’t we add some, you know, drums?”

And now we get Accelerate, which leads me to believe that R.E.M. equate “focus” with rewriting Life’s Rich Pageant. And if that’s what it took to make them sound like a living, breathing band for the first time in forever, then so be it. But did it really take them ten years to realize that electronics are no substitute for Bill Berry and that Mike Mills’s harmony vocals are arguably as important as Stipe’s lead?

The boys from Athens have dealt with this brand of adversity before, in the guise of 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction. That album was a murky, difficult slice of psychedelic folk, subsequently badmouthed by band members and rumored to nearly have broken them up. It was chased by Pageant, a purposely lively, back-to-basics rock album clocking in at 35 minutes with John Mellencamp’s producer behind the boards.

Here again, R.E.M. have found the antidote to the sterile gar-bage of Around the Sun: a 35-minute rock record and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Even the first quarter of Accelerate is perfectly in sync with that of Pageant, sliding effortlessly from ass-kicking political grunge-rock (“Living Well is the Best Revenge” = “Begin the Begin”), to the intensity-upping, life-affirming second track (“Man-Size Wreath” = “These Days”), to the mushy, bro-hug first single (“Supernatural Superserious” = “Fall on Me”). While the similarities aren’t quite as overt after that—though late album power surge “Horse to Water” owns the “Just a Touch” spot—it’s clearly evident which portion of their past R.E.M. opted to mine.

The haters will call this sad recycling. I call it a shockingly enjoyable record from a band that gave little reason to believe they were still capable of such. It helps enormously that for once there’s no question that Accelerate features a human drummer (touring drummer Bill Rieflin of Ministry fame) with four functioning limbs driving the songs in stark contrast to the suspended animation of R.E.M.’s last few records. Equally important is that producer Jacknife Lee finally has Mike Mills working for his paycheck again, placing both his harmony vocals and melodic bass runs high in the mix.

But it’s Peter Buck who ultimately benefits the most from Accelerate‘s balls-out approach, as he’s finally free to dip back into his bottomless bag of garage riffs and simply play the guitar. “Living Well is the Best Revenge” blasts out of the box with Angus Young hammer-ons morphing into over-driven riffage, rendering it arguably the loudest song in the R.E.M. canon, until “Horse to Water” yanks the volume knob way past 11 nine songs later. “Mr. Richards” is a nod to the Monster (1994)-era with its tremolo power-chords, and the melodic power-pop of “Hollow Man” could even pass for a Reckoning (1984) B-Side, albeit a particularly fuzz-laden one. Even Buck’s love for folk dirges in 6/8, represented here by “Until the Day is Done” and “Houston,” aren’t missed opportunities; they feature legitimate drums and cool production touches like “Houston”’s use of an over-driven organ and miles-deep bass notes to accompany Michael Stipe’s tale of Katrina-driven paranoia (“If the storm doesn’t get me / The government will”).

The title track and “Sing for the Submarine” will warrant a skip from time to time as the former never entirely gels, and “Submarine” just sounds scattered, Stipe’s vocals seemingly at odds with the song’s dark swing. Still, either would have been the strongest track on Around the Sun a thousand times over. Maybe I’m just overjoyed that it’s finally the start of baseball season, but I’m a little shocked as to how completely I’m drinking R.E.M.’s kool-aid here. Accelerate isn’t the least bit original, nor is it anything that they haven’t already attempted in their nearly three (!) decade career. It’s simply R.E.M. finally making a concerted effort to sound like themselves, and realizing that’s not such a horrible idea. The last time I was this excited to put on an R.E.M. record (1994 if you’re wondering), I was fifteen; the antithesis of “immaterial.”