The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Out & About

Media Credit: COURTESY CASS BIRD R.E.M. released its 14th studio album this week, complete with a listening party at Athens venue The Melting Point. The band plays at Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta on June 21. [Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

For those diehards who suffered through "Around the Sun" (I paid upwards of $40 for the deluxe edition), "Accelerate" is a refreshing jolt of life as well as a huge relief.

Whew. R.E.M. doesn't suck - they're actually still really good.

Indeed, R.E.M.'s 14th studio album is everything its 13th was not - where the latter was soft, slow and sedated, the former is loud, fast and angry. Stipe hasn't spit venom like this since "Document," and he does so from the get-go

The band blitzes through three tracks in nine minutes, including single "Supernatural Superserious," before shifting gears for all of 30 seconds. After Stipe's piano-laden intro to "Hollow Man," Buck and Mills rip into the song's remainder and don't let up for another three tracks.

At less than 35 minutes, "Accelerate" is R.E.M.'s shortest LP ever, but it's not quite short enough. Whereas its beginning and end slash and burn, its middle third crashes and burns. The stripped-down, slow-moving "Until the Day is Done" and "Sing For the Submarine" are as dull as anything on "Around the Sun," but opener "Living Well is the Best Revenge" and closer "I'm Gonna DJ" are as jaunty as anything on "Green."

Unlike "Reveal," "Accelerate" is at last R.E.M.'s long-awaited return to form. Perhaps more importantly, it's a sign of life after Bill Berry and, God willing, a harbinger of good things to come.

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