New REM album: Accelerate

[jules]

Just thought I'd say that I bought it yesterday. And it's really very good. I'd recommend it to anyone. Love, love, love REM!

[Genuine_Indian_Guru]

I hear that it's a bit heavier this time around.
Much like their album 'Monster'.
True?

[jules]

Genuine Indian Guru: it is reminiscent of Monster, yes.
I don't like the way the rock journalists rate each REM album so highly and then knock it down a couple of years later. They do the same thing to Macca. As I usually think about Macca's albums, they're all pretty damn good (with a couple of exceptions maybe). Accelerate has been touted as a return to form, which, in a way, it is. But I really liked Reveal. At first they said the same thing, and now it seems to be regarded as some sort of artistic failure. Reviewers really can be rather odious!

[mr h atom]

'accelerate' is far more in the 'monster/'new adv. in hifi' mode than the last 3 albums...
so, if you really like that stuff ( i do; but i like all the post I.R.S. stuff as much as the I.R.S. stuff (with the exception noted below))...this album won't dissappoint...
so far, i'm diggin' all tracks intensely: except, maybe, the last : something about Stipe gettin' his urban groove thang (Radio Song w/KRS-one was kinda cool...this...notsomuch ) on that just makes me cringe a little.

still haven't come to realistic thought on 'up', 'reveal' and 'around the sun': they remain elusive for me...try as i might ( and i do try them out often) i just can't grasp what they were getting at...
they all seem sort of adrift, ethereal (not in a good way)...
none do i actually hate...
but none do i actually like...
they remain some of the few albums by any artist (whose near entire catalogue i like ) that i keep trying to 'get', yet fail: most times, by now...i'd've given up: yet, i'm intrigued...how can a group of guys, who always offer up such interesting stuff, go so wrong..or, did they ?

having said that: 'Accelerate' is not nesc. a huge step forward, either (nor quite a step back): just a grand reiteration, with style and panache, of that which we alrerady know and love about these guys - it is nice to see them regain their footing

[ProgRocker]

Well I liked Up and Reveal, Around The Sun was a bit of a snoozefest, though. Accelerate is much better than any of those albums; I'm not sure how I'll rank it long term, but for the moment it's easily one of R.E.M.'s best albums.