R.E.M.: Accelerate, Reviewed

R.E.M.

Accelerate

(Warner Brothers)

By ANNIE ZALESKI

R.E.M.’s Jackknife Lee-produced fourteenth studio album, Accelerate, lives up to its speedy title. It’s loud, quick and dirty, spinning by so fast that it takes multiple listens to absorb. It’s full of buzzing guitars and stream-of-conscious discontent, along with an abundance of Mike Mills’ choir-boy harmonies and sinewy bass. And naturally, it hints at the Athens, Georgia, band’s past – fuzzy riffs à la 1994’s Monster (the title track); the dirty distortion and droning yowls of 1988’s Green (“Mr. Richards”); orchestrated elegance circa 1992’s Automatic for the People (“Houston”); and the slick political earnestness of 1987’s Document (“Until the Day is Done”). Yet the amped-up atmosphere of Accelerate is unique within R.E.M.’s catalog, and doesn’t resemble the mood of previous releases – meaning that you can’t exactly herald it as a return to form (whatever that means, anyway).