Tuesday, April 8, 2008
R.E.M. - Accelerate
By Mark Saleski
Here's how it might work:
A band shows up at a certain point in your life and you happen to be grabbed by the music. The group and its songs become a part of your life just as surely as the memories of the apartment you lived in, your girlfriend at the time, and anything else that was 'important.'
R.E.M. was like that for me. The darlings of college radio at the time, their Murmur record embossed a permanent logo on the music department of my brain. A lot of things are attached to that mind space — my best friend Gene's cozy living room (where Murmur was given at least two spins per session), the greater Bangor area, and my girlfriend, who went on to become my first wife.
Here's how we'd like it to work:
We do get older, but our relationships stretch to take up the space. Love and friendships don't decay. All along, the music glues everything together. The bands making the music take paths parallel to our own.
What really happens:
Most things don't (and can't) remain the same. We know this. People get hurt. Relationships fall apart. Friends fade from view. We "grow up" (not always a good thing). The inevitability of these changes is something that's accepted, however begrudgingly.
Remember those musicians? The ones we hoped would enjoy lives as blissful as our own? They're not the same either. So why is it that we expect them to be able to avoid time's gravity any better then we can? Why are bands cut no slack in their artistic lives? I'm not heading toward a gift wrapped rationalization of a group's lesser efforts (Hello, Around The Sun). It's just that sometimes it seems that a fan's preconceptions (and wishes) can cloud their listening judgment.
Accelerate is not Monster. It's also not Murmur or Automatic For The People either. It's not trying to be any of those things. What it seems to be is R.E.M. finally artfully negotiating the post-Bill Berry world. It's full of many of the elements that attracted me way back when.
"Living Well Is The Best Revenge" has, on top of Buck's crunchy arpeggios, the truly great tension-producing effect of Mike Mills descending bass run that divebombs toward the first verse. It reminded me of Entwistle's four-string madness on The Who's "The Real Me." "Supernatural Superserious" has a great, chunky guitar riff. The title track makes great use of dissonance, both with the opening four-note suspension and the guitar chords that slash through the chorus.
"Sing For The Submarine" revisits the early Athens sound before laying in some heavy, almost art-rock bombast. "Hollow Man" starts off seeming to be a piano ballad of sorts, with the idea "I've been lost inside my head..." pulling us in — before the anthemic chorus takes hold. "Houston" brings out the traditional R.E.M. fascination with emotional darkness, the protagonist trying to push away the negative thoughts in favor of positive memories.
The loud guitar sounds (Note to the producers of the world: back off on the compression, will ya?!!) might make a person think that Accelerate is Monster, Part II. Not so, because most of the songs lack the glammy attitude of Monster. Sure, some folks are as annoyed with "I'm Gonna DJ" as they were with "What's The Frequency Kenneth?" I can't help that (I also like both songs). Besides, is that song more annoying than Stipe's rhyming of "apostles" with "nostrils" during "Living Well's The Best Revenge"?
Perhaps the most shocking moment on Accelerate occurs during "Until The Day Is Done." Is that a mandolin I hear. I could have sworn I read an article in Spin where Peter Buck said he'd sworn off the instrument. Welcome back!
What has happened:
R.E.M. has proven us all wrong. We were absolutely certain that Around The Sun was the sure fire, Athens, GA death rattle. We were wrong. If you listen closely, Accelerate pulls a musical thread through just about every era of this band. It makes me reminisce for a bit before concluding that all of these decades of change have been worth it.
To comment on this and more reviews go to Blogcritics.org.
Posted by cphillips at
04:31 PM
