The challenge, it seems, in reviewing Accelerate is to focus on the music, not merely the context surrounding the album — whether that context is its meekly received predecessor, the ennui of the band’s post-Bill Berry era, or the disc’s slight run time of 34 minutes.
Without a doubt, Accelerate is a response to the flaccid Around The Sun (just as the guitar-led Monster was to the brilliant but laid-back Automatic For the People), and a welcome return not so much to the past as to the band’s sonic identity. Case in point: Mike Mills’ background vocals had fadered down to the point of conspicuous absence on Sun; here, right off the bat with “Living Well Is The Best Revenge” and “Man-Sized Wreath”, he is prominently restored in arrangements that one can’t help but call classic R.E.M.
Still, it’s circa 2008, not the IRS years as some have contended. Because, truth to be told, if you’ve seen R.E.M. perform in concert over the last decade, songs from Up, Reveal and even Around The Sun have inexorably veered away from their overlayered and fussy recorded versions (“Walk Unafraid” being a perfect example) toward the band’s archetypal sound — or, put another way, toward what it is we have always loved about them. The change with Accelerate is that Stipe, Buck, Mills and their associates skipped right to that point in the studio, perhaps benefiting from the open rehearsals conducted in Dublin last year where most of these songs got a thorough test drive.
Several tracks (notably “Hollow Man”, “Horse To Water” and “Until The Day Is Done”) pass with flying colors, stand comfortably with the band’s finest work, and best of all stick in your head — the real signal that R.E.M. has found the path again.
