Accelerate the first studio album in four years from R.E.M., finds modern rock's most acclaimed band returning to the stripped-down, guitar-driven power that first enraptured fans. Helmed by the band and, for the first time, Jacknife Lee (co-producer of U2's '05 Grammy® Album Of The Year How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, The Hives and Snow Patrol), Accelerate puts the 2007 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame group once again firmly behind the wheel of alternative rock, a genre R.E.M. helped invent. Accelerate is available as a CD-only in a Softpak; a CD+DVD that features a 64-page book and the Vincent Moon film 6 Days (which includes behind-the-scenes footage and performance pieces of various songs on the album) plus two bonus tracks "Red Head Walking" and "Airliner."
R.E.M. Photos
More from R.E.M.
Accelerate
Up (CD + DVD+A) (Dig)
Up
Reveal (Limited Edition)
Reveal (CD & DVD Audio) [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]
Reveal
Out of Time (CD + DVD-A) (Dig) [ENHANCED]
New Adventures in Hi Fi (CD + DVD+A) (Dig) [ENHANCED]
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Monster (CD + DVD+ A) (Dig)
Monster
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 (Special Edition)
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003
Green (CD + DVD-A) (Dig)
Green
Automatic for the People (CD & DVD Audio)
Automatic for the People
Around the Sun [SPECIAL EDITION]
Around the Sun [ENHANCED]
Around the Sun
R.E.M. Live 2CD/1DVD [LIVE]
In the decade since the departure of drummer Bill Berry, R.E.M. could seem at times schizophrenic. Their albums of the era, which veered from the experimentalism of Up and reaffirmation of Reveal to 2004's more diffuse, reflective Around the Sun, often stood in stark contrast to the vibrancy of their live act. But here the alt-rock godfathers have resolved that dichotomy with their most focused and satisfying album in over a decade; a collection that doesn't so much revisit the bracing ethos of the band's '80s coming-of-age, as boil it down to its essence and supercharge it with the energy of their contemporary stage shows. That sensibility is evident from the opening track, "Living Well's the Best Revenge," where Peter Buck's aggressive, distortion-drenched riffs and Michael Stipe's gruff snarl set the tone for "Mansized Wreath," "Horse to Water," and "Supernatural Serious"; rockers that bristle with the abandonment and aggressive energy of a band half their tenure. Yet it's no mere blast-from-the-past. The inclusion of the band's recent touring musicians (Scott McCaughey on second guitar and drummer Bill Rieflin) into the session mix, as well as working out much of the material live onstage in Dublin, has yielded something more sonically akin to R.E.M. 2.2. Stipe's penchant for the lyrically opaque has been largely supplanted by an edgy, articulate passion that variously explores "Houston'"s displaced Katrina refugees, the bluegrass-tinged "Until the Day is Done," and the more typical, quiet self-examination of "Hollow Man," before exploding in the album's unlikely, upbeat elegy "I'm Gonna DJ," where singer and band find renewed hope in not only music, but themselves. --Jerry McCulley
