![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/rem_accelerate.jpg\")
Continuing on with my modern-day takes on late-period RE.M. albums \u2013 an endeavor inspired by 2023 vinyl reissues of those records \u2013 I\u2019ll be less self-indulgent and only provide just a bit<\/i> of personal backstory this time.<\/p>\nContinuing on with my modern-day takes on late-period RE.M. albums \u2013 an endeavor inspired by 2023 vinyl reissues of those records \u2013 I\u2019ll be less self-indulgent and only provide just a bit<\/i> of personal backstory this time.<\/p>\n
I found a used CD copy Accelerate<\/i> at a yard sale a few years ago. As with most everything the group did post-Monster<\/i>, I hadn\u2019t heard any of the songs prior to that point. So I came to Accelerate<\/i> more than a decade after its original 2008 release. And on that first listen (in, I think, 2019) I was surprised at just how solid a collection it was. It did not, as I\u2019ve subsequently pointed out countless times with regard to the band\u2019s other late-era works, sound much like Chronic Town<\/i>, but then does Abbey Road<\/i> sound like Please Please Me<\/i>? Only seven years elapsed between those records. Better, perhaps, to think of Accelerate<\/i> (made a quarter century after R.E.M.\u2019s debut) in the same way one might view The Division Bell<\/i> versus The Piper at the Gates of Dawn<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Accelerate<\/i> is a comparatively brief album; at a mere 34 minutes, it\u2019s closer in length to albums of the LP era; no Brothers in Arms<\/i> 55-minute overindulgence for our boys from Athens. (The mixed reception that greeted 2004\u2019s Around the Sun<\/i> \u2013 also a 55-minute album \u2013 may have played into this.) In any event, Accelerate<\/i>\u2019s economy\/brevity is a feature, not a bug.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiving Well is the Best Revenge\u201d roars out of the speakers, with a character not unlike \u201cIt\u2019s the End of the World.\u201d Peter Buck\u2019s distorted and melodic guitar work, Mike Mills\u2019 active bass lines (and trademark countermelodic vocals) plus Michael Stipe\u2019s impassioned vocals all hearken back to the band\u2019s best work. The song itself isn\u2019t among the band\u2019s most memorable, but it\u2019s solid. The drums (by future King Crimson member Bill Rieflin) are buried a bit in the mix, but they\u2019re spot-on.<\/p>\n
Better even is \u201cMan Sized Wreath.\u201d Buck\u2019s guitar is a crunchy drone; Mills\u2019 bass work is even tastier. And the vocal arrangement is classic R.E.M. \u201cSupernatural Superserious\u201d initially peels back the sonic complexity, and even when the tune gets fully underway, it\u2019s a model of economy. The track\u2019s feel is of a piece with Green<\/i><\/a> and Document<\/i>-era tracks. Thanks to tracks like this, listeners who might have wanted more a rocking R.E.M. than they got with Reveal<\/i><\/a> and Around the Sun<\/i><\/a> wouldn\u2019t find much if anything to complain about with Accelerate<\/i>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s only four cuts in, with \u201cHollow Man,\u201d that the balladeering, piano-focused side of the band appears. And that\u2019s only part of what the song offers. \u201cHollow Man\u201d seamlessly shifts back and forth between contemplative\/quiet and rousing\/rocking. Producer Jacknife Lee demonstrates a good understanding of the group\u2019s strengths, and Rieflin\u2019s playing here follows in in the style of Bill Berry.<\/p>\n R.E.M. has released more than a few waltz-based tunes, and \u201cHouston\u201d is another. The song is reminiscent of another such tune, \u201cSwan Swan H\u201d from 1986\u2019s Lifes Rich Pageant<\/i>. Some odd production choices \u2013 distracting crackle and distortion \u2013 mar an otherwise strong rocker in the title track. Some interesting orchestration (or maybe keyboard texture) is buried in the mix; the song deserves better. By no means a disaster, it\u2019s merely a brief, missed opportunity.<\/p>\n Fans of the band\u2019s acoustic side a la Ou<\/i>t of Time<\/i> \u2013 not to mention three-quarter time \u2013 will luxuriate in the hypnotic \u201cUntil the Day is Done.\u201d Anyone who might have written the band off as a spent force surely hasn\u2019t heard this tune, as fine a folk-leaning song as R.E.M. has ever produced. Special notice should be accorded to the work of Peter Buck and Bill Rieflin, but Mills and Stipe are shown to good effect as well.<\/p>\n The soaring \u201cMr. Richards\u201d is as lyrically oblique as anything in the band\u2019s catalog, but at least the words are audible. (A helpful lyric sheet is included in the vinyl reissue.) Mills\u2019 vocal harmonies make a good song even better. Peter Buck\u2019s nimble guitar work enlivens the slightly spooky \u201cSing for the Submarine.\u201d Rieflin\u2019s punctuating drum beats and an atmospheric arrangement add to the song\u2019s allure.<\/p>\n Rieflin introduces \u201cHorse to Water\u201d with an energetic drum figure, and the band fires on all cylinders. The most powerful arrangement on the entire record, \u201cHorse to Water\u201d is R.E.M. at its most rocking. It\u2019s also the band it its most concise, clicking in at just a shade over two minutes. It\u2019s an exemplar of the \u201cleave \u2018em wanting more\u201d philosophy.<\/p>\n Even briefer is the album closer, \u201cI’m Gonna DJ.\u201d A pounding, insistent character and some sung-spoken Stipe vocals are supported by some supremely tight musicianship. And with \u201cwoo hoo\u201d vocals peppered throughout the arrangement, the song seems to reveal a band that\u2019s having a lot of fun doing what it does. And that\u2019s true of Accelerate<\/i> in general; as such, anyone who likes R.E.M. but hasn\u2019t given this album a listen should do so forthwith.<\/p>\n To wrap up, it\u2019s back to a personal note. Adding this and Reveal<\/i> to my vinyl collection, I see that I now have nearly all of R.E.M.\u2019s studio releases in the classic media format. Lacking from that stack are three in a row from the \u201890s: Mon<\/i>s<\/i>ter<\/i> (which I bought on original release on CD and didn\u2019t love), New Adventures in Hi-Fi<\/i> (ditto\/meh) and Up<\/i>, which I\u2019ve never heard. My understanding is that the last of those is set for reissue next month. If I find myself with a review copy, you\u2019ll hear about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continuing on with my modern-day takes on late-period RE.M. albums \u2013 an endeavor inspired by 2023 vinyl reissues of those records \u2013 I\u2019ll be less self-indulgent and only provide just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,64,65,73],"tags":[1773],"class_list":["post-26291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-r-e-m","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26291"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31093,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291\/revisions\/31093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}