R.E.M.'s Next Stand

J. Edward Keyes on Shuffle

by J. Edward Keyes

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Published: Mar 26, 2008

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The first line of the title track on the best R.E.M. record in 16 years (possibly more) goes: "Sinking fast, the waves shake to my feet." He isn't kidding: "Sinking fast" was an art R.E.M. spent the last decade perfecting, and it's a trend that their 14th album, Accelerate, breathlessly reverses.

If that narrative seems to be getting a lot of play lately, it's because some of the more eager critics have been aching to write it ever since Bill Berry ambled off to raise corn and tend cows back in 1997. The remaining trio didn't help matters, repeatedly calling attention to the fact that their drummer had quit by making records that relied less and less on actual human percussion. The loop-de-loop guitar that kickstarts "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" is like slash-and-burn forestry, razing the mealy efforts of the last decade and replacing them with pure distilled adrenaline. Accelerate's opening triptych is flawless, and everything that follows is nearly as good, a collection of brisk, bracing songs that detonate before they even have a chance to bore. R.E.M. has tried to make rock records exactly twice in recent memory, and both times yielded clumsy results. The big difference here is that unlike the hazard-sign proto-glam Monster or the overlong, well-intentioned New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Accelerate actually sounds like an R.E.M. record.

For a good chunk of the '80s and '90s the group was mentioned in the same breath as U2, but that was always just sloppy shorthand. R.E.M. was never as strident or as commanding or as male. To that end, there are no anthems on Accelerate, just sustained blunt force. It's a punk record, sure, but it's not the Ramones, it's the Runaways.

The larger question is whether anyone will care or, more to the point, whether R.E.M. has any interest in making them care. They badly fumbled a recent performance at the South by Southwest music festival, mixing up the vibrant new material with plodding clunkers from the last decade. And though they doled out exactly three classics, anyone waiting around for "Harborcoat" was going to have to settle for "The Great Beyond." In so many ways, the show was a reminder of a classic R.E.M. trope: able to thrill, prone to frustrate. It is no small relief to announce that Accelerate spends a bulk of its time on the former.

(j_keyes@citypaper.net)

 

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