Review: 'Accelerate'

"We know that we're, for the most part, a great live band but we had lost our focus as a recording band," Michael Stipe now admits. Basically what that means is their last three albums had some good songs, but sounded rubbish. Recorded right after drummer Bill Berry's departure, 'Up' was the work of a three-legged dog. 'Reveal' just tried too hard to sound like REM and 'Around The Sun' was, well, a little dull.

It was only on stage that the newer songs soared: 'All The Way To Reno' has become a live staple; 'The Boy In The Well' and 'Electron Blue' showed themselves to be some of the band's best work.

Lessons learned, they approached their latest album as they would a show, even going as far as to roadtest the work in progress with a series of Dublin gigs last year: "We wanted something that had an urgency to it, a rawness to it and that we would record really fast."

In that, Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills have succeeded. As its name and rough cover artwork suggest, the (wah wah) pedal-to-the-floor 'Accelerate' is lean, aggressive, even exhilarating. They've done more than simply plug the guitars back in to recapture the sound of 'What's The Frequency Kenneth' or 'Orange Crush'; this is the work of a band reborn, ripping through 11 taut tracks in under 35 minutes.

It pulls away at full speed, Stipe employing his 'It's The End Of The World' rapid fire delivery to keep up with the runaway tempo of 'Living Well Is The Best Revenge', before turning drill sergeant over the crunchy verses of 'Man-Sized Wreath'. The familiar REM melodies and vocal harmonies kick in on the choruses before helping the big dumb riff of the flag-waving 'Supernatural Superserious' seem less big and dumb. The music to the three minute 24 second song sounds like it was written in, well, three minutes and 24 seconds — but that's a good thing. As is the ebb and flow of 'Hollow Man', which threatens to break out into the words "everybody hurts… sometimes" before the drums and jangly guitars kick in to take the song in an unexpected direction.

And the surprises keep coming: apocalyptic party anthem 'I'm Gonna DJ' swings as much as it did during their last world tour; the dark and ominous title track would easily have been the best song on 1993's grungy 'Monster'; and 'Horse To Water', uhm, gallops with all the unbridled pace and attitude of a '70s punk song.

Not bad for a bunch of 40-somethings. But there are times when the three men — as revitalised as they may be — can’t quite recapture the carefree energy of their youth. 'Mr. Richards' and the overlong 'Sing For The Submarine' sound ponderous, too considered, in this maelstrom.

But alongside the slick unplugged political anthem 'Until The Day Is Done' (don't forget this album is by REM, not The Ramones) and the organ-driven 'Houston', these missteps do add much needed texture, ensuring 'Accelerate' isn't simply a collection of instantly memorable (and instantly forgettable) songs.

Here Stipe's words play their part too — amidst all the posturing and amplifiers turned up to 11, he consistently delivers first rate lyrics that are obscure ("Providence blinked, facing the son"), humorous ("'Cos if heaven does exist/ With a kickin' playlist), political ("The battle's been lost, the war is not won") and humorously political ("If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will").

Mission accomplished.