R.E.M. - Accelerate
(Warner Bros.)
http://www.remhq.com

The phrase ‘return to form’ has never been used so much. Nearly every preview, every review, every mention of R.E.M.’s hugely anticipated new album, Accelerate, has bandied that word about like a cat playing with a wounded mouse. It gets to the point where, even if you haven’t heard the album, you’ll automatically assume that Buck, Mills and Stipe are back on track – they’ve gone back to Rockville and they feel fine.

It’s true that ever since Bill Berry left, the band as a three-piece have failed to ignite as fully as they had previously. Up, the first release after the drummer’s departure, was a heavily textured, layered affair brimming with ideas and potential, but good as it was, it didn’t have the same power of longevity as the many albums that had preceded it. Reveal had some wonderful songs on it – particularly the epic, lyrically dense She Just Wants To Be – but much of it was lacklustre and tepid, like R.E.M. trying to sound like someone trying to sound like R.E.M. Around The Sun was even more diluted – the essence of the band there in Stipe’s ever-haunting vocals but the songs plodding and flaccid, not much more than ‘nice’ or ‘pleasant’.

As is common knowledge now, even the band themselves have expressed dissatisfaction with Around The Sun and it’s something which shows from the very first notes of Accelerate. It begins with Living Well’s The Best Revenge, a ragged, rough-voiced song akin to the benzedrine-fuelled assaults that defined the much underrated Monster. Mansized Wreath follows, its driving guitars and Mike Mills harmonies echoing the faster songs from New Adventures In Hi-Fi, arguably the band’s last great album. From there, first single, Supernatural Superserious, takes the listener further back down the R.E.M. timeline and Hollowman even more so.

With a back catalogue as identifiable, important and impressive as R.E.M.’s, it would be all too easy and unfair to compare each individual song on this album to another part of the band’s history, to compare notes, musically and lyrically. Sure, Horse To Water has rings of Swan Swan H to it (from 1986’s Lifes [sic] Rich Pageant) and the darkness that oozes out of Sing For The Submarine would have fit neatly onto Document, but to really return to form, to become the band they used to be, R.E.M. have to do more than just echo past glories.

Accelerate manages to do just that. It doesn’t just rewind, but, as its title suggests, it speeds up. It’s full of the urgency that used to permeate the band’s songs, an oddly nostalgic sense of carpe diem that made them vital and exciting. Yes, it sounds familiar, but R.E.M. always have – partly because of Stipe’s distinctive vocals, partly because they have a knack for writing catchy, moving tunes that sound as if they’ve always been there. Thankfully, luckily, finally, Accelerate is full of these. They don't outstay their welcome, either. These eleven songs clock in at under 35 minutes - short, sharp, bursts of fresh, breezy air.

That's not to say it's perfect or flawless, however. I’m Gonna DJ is the biggest disappointment, not least for the cringeworthy opening line - “Death is pretty final/I’m collecting vinyl”, which takes their newfound lust for life a little too far - but it’s the most consistent and cohesive record the band have made for a long time. It's exactly what R.E.M. albums used to be like and what they should be like. Invigorating, fresh and exciting, it effortlessly straddles the divide between their past, their present and their promise.

So yes, you could say that Accelerate is a return to form. For a band of their staure and history though, it's probably slightly more profound than that. It's not just that they've returned to form - R.E.M. themselves have returned.

Mischa Pearlman