KEY POINTS:
REM
Accelerate (Warner Bros)
Verdict: Quite simply the band's best album in 16 years
Herald Rating: * * * *
REM's latest album is a reminder of what an important band they used to be during the 80s and early 90s.
With albums like 1983 debut Murmur and Life's Rich Pageant from 1986, they bridged the gap between noisy and cool indie rock and the mainstream. Then, by 1992's Automatic For the People, they were as big as U2. Since then it's been mostly forgettable, with the last three albums, Up, Reveal and Around the Sun, especially so.
On Accelerate, the band's 14th album, they're back to their best. Peter Buck's guitar swings from spiralling and lush to gnashing and raw on rampant opener Living Well Is the Best Revenge and Supernatural Superserious. And Michael Stipe, who still has one of the most distinctive voices in rock, flares his nostrils and spits out lines like "choking on the bones you tossed me" with renewed vigour.
While Man-Sized Wreath starts off sounding a little too close to the annoying What's the Frequency, Kenneth?, the pace settles beautifully for Hollow Man and Houston, a hark back to Pageant's Cuyahoga or Flowers of Guatemala, before the album picks ups again for the vroom, vroom of the title track.
Accelerate is a return to REM's poignant, noisy and cathartic best.
