by Bryce Napier and Tom Demi, first published January 10, 2016
Accelerate
released April 1, 2008
Warner Bros. Records
“I suppose some fans were unsettled by the way this album seemed like such an obvious response to the criticism of their previous few albums ... but I think the results speak for themselves.”
Holy smokes. R.E.M. come tearing out of the gate on their 14th release, Accelerate. I suppose an argument could be made that most albums are in some respects an answer to the previous album, but nowhere in the R.E.M. oeuvre is it more explicit than here. The lean, muscular "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" is their biggest flat-out barnstormer since… since "Just A Touch," from Lifes Rich Pageant, maybe? And several of the subsequent tracks attempt to kick it up a few notches from there.
An alternate theory concerning the disappointment of Around The Sun (and, in a more general way, the whole three-album McCarthy-produced arc): The members of R.E.M. are some stubborn bastards. While they did continue on as a threesome after vowing they'd never do that very thing, they never invited any other musicians into the official inner circle. There was a fairly bitter parting of ways with guitarist Peter Holsapple in the early '90s when he started wondering why he was a salaried employee of the band and not an equal partner getting songwriting credits and royalties. Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow recorded and toured with the band for years (with McCaughey in particular being thick as thieves with Peter Buck, the two of them getting involved in all manner of side projects together, including The Baseball Project, The Minus 5, and in Robyn Hitchcock's backing band, the Venus 3) without ever gaining status beyond a listing as "additional musicians" in the liner notes. Likewise, Joey Waronker (Up and Reveal) and Bill Rieflin (Around The Sun) were brought in to play drums, but were never anointed as R.E.M.'s new drummer. According to Buck, he was already toying with the vintage drum machines and electronics that informed Up and Reveal when Bill Berry announced his intention to quit the band, so those albums went in a direction the band was headed anyway, perhaps just causing them to lean into it a little more. When the electronics receded into the background for Around The Sun, they were—consciously or not—still trying to honor Berry's departure, leaving the rhythm section hamstrung and ineffective. Rieflin served as little more than a capable timekeeper, and the songs were never allowed to take flight. It took the chip on their shoulder caused by the frigid reception of Sun—the burning desire to prove that they still had plenty left in the tank—to finally outweigh their collective loyalty to Berry. Rieflin is unshackled on Accelerate, allowing R.E.M. to bring it. And they bring it hard.
Yes, they do—hard and fast. Fast not just in tempo, but also in overall time. At about 34 minutes, it's about half as long as their longest album (and, as if to emphasize the "fast" aspect, the vinyl LP was packaged as a double, with each of its four sides playing at 45 RPM). Bryce mentions Lifes Rich Pageant above, and it's also an apt comparison to the way the albums begin—but whereas LRP slows down the high-speed train after two bone-rattling openers, Accelerate stretches that to three almost-seamlessly sequenced rockers before you get a chance to take a breath. And not only is Bill Rieflin let loose, but Mike Mills sounds much more engaged than he has in ages, with creative harmonies and countermelodies, not to mention muscular bass playing.
All true, Tom, but that breath only lasts about 30 seconds before "Hollow Man" properly kicks in, pouring more fuel on the fire (perhaps, in a bit of R.E.M.-appropriate left-turn wordplay, the album should have been entitled Accelerant). The only song-length attempt to decelerate on the whole album is "Until The Day Is Done," the largely-acoustic rambler at track 7.
I suppose some fans were unsettled by the way this album seemed like such an obvious response to the criticism of their previous few albums, as if someone else were controlling their destiny, but I think the results speak for themselves. They brought Jacknife Lee in as a producer, and they decided to stop fussing with the arrangements and just bash it out. In truth, this was the aesthetic of many of Buck's side projects mentioned above anyway, and he does seem to be the glue that holds together the best moments on Accelerate, surely also inspiring Stipe to let out the mighty howls that punctuate a number of songs.
Of course, the pace of these songs made them well-suited for the road. Having revitalized themselves with a residency of five shows in Dublin in 2007, they toured confidently upon the album's release in 2008. I saw them at an amphitheater in Philadelphia in June, where they were joined in onstage appearances by the Smiths' Johnny Marr (there also as a guitarist with Modest Mouse, who supported the bill along with the National) and, on "Begin The Begin," by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder singing some of the lead vocals. Once again, it was an election year, and Stipe let his liberal feelings be known (to the chagrin of some of those around me), except this time his "campaigning" was rewarded with a win for Barack Obama.
Ooh, I like The National, and have a deep fondness for Johnny Marr (whose back-to-basics Smiths were, in some ways, the British equivalent to R.E.M.—beloved oddball outsiders offering a profoundly different sound from that dictated by the synthetic sheen of the 1980s—and who had my allegiance several years before I ever bought an R.E.M. record). That would have been a good line-up.
Those familiar with the long-term R.E.M. narrative might have detected a whiff of desperation coming from Accelerate's raucous thrashing, but beyond that, I honestly don't have any deep criticisms for this record. It's as absorbing as it is brief—the damned thing keeps ending while I'm still gathering my thoughts on it. (Each record so far has been averaging eight plays or so while I'm honing my evaluation; this one is closing in on 20 plays.) It speaks volumes, I think, that I keep getting lost in it once it starts playing. My song-to-song enjoyment varies slightly by degrees, but not a single track strikes me as a dud. I like the wheezing yawp of pipe organ that punctuates "Houston." I'm trying to catch all of the call-outs to their back catalogue in the lyrics of "Sing For The Submarine" (and thrumming along with the bass triplets, too). I'm very taken with the stately backing track of "Mr. Richards," juxtaposed with its acidic rumination on comeuppance (which makes me curious if the title character is someone specific, some ATF Agent or other W. Bush-era advisor actually named Richards, or an amalgam designed to avoid a defamation lawsuit). "Man-Sized Wreath," maybe the track I'm the most ambivalent toward, still has that fascinating crunchy-chord freak-out in the middle of the verses that is reminiscent of Jane's Addiction.
"Supernatural Superserious" strikes me as being in the "Everybody Hurts" vein, but with a particular (and unusual) vantage point: a look at teenage life from the perspective of a benevolent adult. Those pitfalls and humiliations are important (and don't let dismissive folks convince you otherwise), but they aren't the end of the world, and will help shape the adult you become. I like "Until The Day Is Done," too, though I'm aware how easily the desperado vibe could be paired with a Bon Jovi-sung lyric about sleeping around the campfire conspiring to get your horse back from the rustlers in the morning—in which case I probably wouldn't like it at all. It says something about my appreciation for both Stipe's voice and the kind of things he chooses to sing about that they are able to pull it back from the brink.
I'd be similarly hard-pressed to declare any of Accelerate's tracks a dud, although I know that others disagree. My biggest disagreement with you is that "Man-Sized Wreath" is probably my favorite song on the album: It's so filled with joy and verve, and I love the background vocals and the way they get layered in the chorus, from Mills's "aaahs" playing against Stipe's extra "kick it out"s to Stipe's low echoing mumbles of the lyrics. To me, "Supernatural Superserious" comes off at first almost like a coda to the previous song, but it does gather its own personality before long. I think maybe the odd title kept it from being a hit in the U.S., or maybe it was too directly aimed at young people, making them uneasy? Or, I suppose, radio programmers had long since abandoned R.E.M. anyway. (Fun fact: it hit #1 in Norway.)
I would single out the song "Accelerate" as another highlight. Despite the chorus's similarity to that of "Circus Envy," it chugs along at a nice clip (and is a better song), and its 3:33 running time makes it seem almost like an epic after the previous two songs. And that's a good setup for "Until The Day Is Done," which is even longer but doesn't overstay its welcome in the least. You mentioned the bass in "Sing For The Submarine," which I also find irresistible, "bum-bum-bumming" along to it almost unconsciously. "Horse To Water" is enlivened by Mills's tense harmonies in the chorus and Buck's Nirvana-like guitar snarls in the verses, and then "I'm Gonna DJ," with its deliberate cut-and-paste structure, keeps building energy till it ends up virtually accelerating right off a cliff edge to end the album.
It's interesting that they decided to end several songs with that abrupt drop of the microphone, underscoring their determination not let them last an instant longer than necessary. The rawness may have been a goal they were specifically trying to achieve, but it doesn't feel manufactured or fake.
Accelerate suffered the same fate as the rest of their post-Reveal albums in my collection. Without a lot of time or enthusiasm to devote to them, they got filed away before getting a chance to make an impression. That I couldn't find time to experience Accelerate chagrins me the deepest, in hindsight, because I am currently enthralled with this album. I can't seem to stop playing it. Even the reviews I read that praised this album as something of a late-career resurrection are selling it short, I feel, because they seem to appreciate it as a re-energized effort that aims to recapture the spirit of early R.E.M., but hasten to add that it isn't a patch on actual early R.E.M. I'm willing to say this is an impressive, rewarding record, without any caveats. And while I'm circumspect as to whether my eight-year-late gushing first impression will hang around as my long-term opinion, right this instant I'm ready to chuck it into my overall top five.
I think that, over the years, the motivations are forgotten, and it's easier to appreciate these albums for what they are, which is how I came to love Lifes Rich Pageant many years later. I suppose R.E.M. themselves fed into the comparisons to their early work by playing even more of it in their 2007–2008 live sets than they had in 2003–2005. In fact, in yet another reversal from their days with Bill Berry, they abandoned their long-held moratorium on live albums by putting out not one, but two live albums in the "aughts" decade: first R.E.M. Live (2007), culled from a date in Dublin in 2005 during the Around The Sun tour, and then Live At The Olympia (2009), compiled from those 2007 live dates mentioned above, once again in Dublin. There have also been some download-only live releases, plus full concerts with a few of the recent reissues of their eighties albums.
One more note on the 2007 Dublin dates: They used those dates to audition the material that was being recorded or considered for Accelerate, and the Olympia live album illustrates what got discarded. There was "On The Fly," a ruminative tune with a "Country Feedback" vibe that got repurposed musically into the future album track "Blue," and "Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance" was a mid-tempo rocker; both of these must have been nixed because they would have slowed down the pace of the album considerably, but the second one especially was a strong number (and it was played in Philly when I saw them). A third track, "Disguised," gained a new chorus and got revamped—and re-amped—as "Supernatural Superserious."
So, as with New Adventures In Hi-Fi, the songs on Accelerate were shaped largely on the road—and, in fact, their first four albums benefited from this approach in a less specific way, too. It was a method that worked exceptionally well, from my point of view, but this would be the last time that method would be tested, as 2008 marked the end of their touring days, unbeknownst to us at the time. But there was still one more album to come before they called it a day completely.