Man, have we been waiting for this one. I haven’t been this excited about an R.E.M. record since about 1996. Producer Jacknife Lee is quoted as saying he wanted this album to be “thrilling”. It’s an apt appraisal of the final product. If R.E.M. got a bit lost in the woods over the last few records, they’ve turned around and retraced their steps down paths they know well. But, Accelerate is more than just an old formula rehashed. R.E.M. have never so ruthlessly trimmed their songs down to the lean and mean essentials. This economy gives Accelerate a focus, a spark, a sharpness that is already making 2008 a special year for R.E.M. and their fans.
Before we get down to the songs themselves it’s worth pointing out that there is a curious symmetry to the record. Plum in the middle of the album is the title track, Accelerate, and tracks 5-1 and 7-11 ripple out from the centre, often mirroring each other to the outer edges.
As for Accelerate itself, it’s possibly the weakest track on the record, which is not to say it’s bad, just that it isn’t great. Sonically, it sounds like a hybrid of Star 69 and Circus Envy off Monster. For all the power chords and earnestness it never rises above the sum of its parts. And, unlike almost every other track of the record, it lacks a comic wink or cheeky flourish. I suspect once released of some of it’s studio gumpf, it may translate better live as a raw rocker.
Flanking Accelerate are tracks 5 and 7, both folky ditties set to a bed of picked acoustic guitars in 6/8 time. Houston might be an Out of Time offcut if it wasn’t for the grizzly, dirty, throbbing organ that squats itself over the verses. Houston is supposed to be inspired by incidents and comments surrounding victims of Hurricane Katrina. It may well be intentional, but those overdrived organs don’t half sound like waves busting flood barriers – it’s a deft instrumental touch that lifts the song nicely. Until the Day is Done is delicate and shimmering. It is a close musical cousin of Try not to breathe – a song with space and just a hint of “unresolvedness”. Lyrically and musically both songs ask questions but provide few answers. “What have I done?” sings Michael Stipe forlornly over the middle 8. The question has a double meaning. This destruction is somehow my fault: what have I done? And in the weeks following the crisis, what have I done to help?
Hollow Man is a lemon slice of power pop. It suffers from some predict-a-chord and predict-a-rhyme moments but generally, given the last three records, it’s just so nice to hear R.E.M. bouncing and having fun. Mr. Richards is more or less an example of the one-chord-verse R.E.M. song (think Finest Worksong, Me in Honey) with overdrived guitars pulled from Monster and NAIHF. It’s a perfectly adequate album track, but it suffers from some heavy-handed production which compresses Michael’s vocals into a stifling tube.
Now, to tracks 3 and 9 – Supernatural Superserious and Sing for the Submarine – songs with titles that rely heavily on the use of the letter “s”. Both tracks chug along briskly and have more ornate arrangements than the majority of songs on the album. Supernatural Superserious launched this album well and the track sits comfortably mid-way through the first half of the record. (That’s my favourite fan-mixed video up there – by AFN). Sing for the Submarine is a bizarre song and I think unlike any other R.E.M. have written. On first listen Mercury Rev’s “Deserters songs” LP with a whiff of speeded up (should that be accelerated?) Chorus and the Ring came to mind. I also can’t help think of the Beatles Yellow Submarine or even some Pink Floyd. The lyrics (not to mention some of the guitar work) are psychedelic and self-reference the band’s own back catalogue. Sing for the Submarine may be the album’s only example of R.E.M. breaking new ground as musicians. That being said, I’m still undecided if it’s actually any good.
And so finally to the beginning and to the end. Living Well is the Best Revenge followed by Man-Sized Wreath is the best opening 1-2 punch that R.E.M. have set to record since Life’s Rich Pageant. Horse to Water and I’m Gonna DJ repeat the trick at the back end of the album, flinging the listener out the record’s back door. The opening two salvos have grown-up nicely since the Dublin rehersals and Bill Rieflin’s drumming is crisp and chunky. The studio-added extra guitar parts really enhance what were already trademark catchy Rickenbacker hooks. Mills’ fretboard is getting a lot of work with popping, melodic basslines. Stipe growls through the tracks and spits out his cutting diatribes like a madman unleashed but just manages to temper his enthusiasm with the experience to deliver spot on vocal performances which come supplemented by the harmonising, cooing Mike Mills. And back down the other end of the record and we can ditto all of the above for Horse to Water. All three of those songs have been given a short back and sides which leave us listeners with a delicious slap to the face and not much else: 3 verses, 3 choruses, no extended introductions, no middle eights, no twiddly outros.
Opinions are divided about I’m Gonna DJ, but I’m in the “this is a great way to finish a record” camp. It’s certainly a brave song to write – the loopy song structure and even loopier lyrics have turned off some (the Uncut review gave this track 2/5) but for me it has irresistable charm. The quasi-gallows humour, the absurd apocalyptical images, the “wingle and the wangle”, the imploding of all that we’ve just heard: this song should be called Dying Well is the Best Revenge.
This album is the sound of R.E.M. in a drag car doing 0-60 in 3 seconds flat. It may not be the smoothest ride, but it certainly is exhilirating.
ps. Some of my favourite lyrics:
From Living Well: All you sad and lost apostles… flaring nostrils, choking on the bones you tossed to them…
From Man-Sized Wreath: Turn on the TV, what do I see? A pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me, wow! I would have thought by now we would be ready to proceed… Nature abhors a vaccum, but what’s between your ears?
From Until the Day is done: So hold tight your babies and your guns.
Mr. Richards: Mr. Richards you’re forgiven for a narrow lack of vision, but the fires are still raging on. The public’s got opinions…
From Horse to Water: I could have kept my head down, I might have kept my mouth shut…
beyond random 