R.E.M. | The Week

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briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. *** With its reputation in doubt, R.E.M. decided to “crank up the amps,” said Hugo

Lindgren in _New York._ R.E.M.’s 14th studio album, _Accelerate,_ finds the band putting the pedal to the metal in the “name of self-preservation.” After drummer Bill Berry left the band in

1997, R.E.M. forced its fans to endure a decade marked by three “fussed over, downbeat” albums. Discs such as _Around the Sun_ weren’t awful. But they were full of “uninviting, oblique songs

that depended on a level of intense curiosity” most fans just couldn’t muster. To shake their audience—and themselves—out of such lassitude, the three remaining members of R.E.M. have

turned out their “best, and certainly their loudest,” record in years. _Accelerate_ “corrals 35 minutes of the fastest” tracks the band’s produced in decades, said Josh Modell in _Spin._

Though R.E.M. has always been a bit too cerebral to really rock out, the group approaches this album with a “joyous sense of purpose” and a bracing, “‘let’s just do this’ attitude.” The

snarling guitars of “Living Well Is the Best Revenge” start the album with a jolt, said Joshua Klein in _Pitchforkmedia.com._ Producer Jacknife Lee speeds up the songs and sharpens the

sound. Unfortunately, “velocity is not the same thing as vitality, and brevity is not the same thing as urgency.” Though a solid effort to “recapture the spirit of R.E.M.’s prime,”

_Accelerate_ merely echoes their finest work. A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com