R.E.M. - Accelerate

There can be no doubt that R.E.M. has written some great songs. Actually they've written some of the best. I tend to forget this but all it takes is a listen to some of their back catalogue to make you remember. ‘Shiny Happy People’, ‘Orange Crush’, ‘Fall On Me.’ What a fantastic band! I think I can safely say that R.E.M. was one of the first bands that I called one of my favourites.

The band released their new album, Accelerate, this week in Canada. Many are calling it their best album since 1994’s Monster. This seems to imply that the band have been somewhat lacking with their releases in-between but I'll leave that up to you to decide. Anyways, I just got their new one and I can confirm that it is one of their best. Thank goodness! I would hate to think that we were kept waiting for what, four years, only to be disappointed. But none of that matters because as I said, Accelerate contains a fantastic group of songs and are very much reminiscent of some of their older material. Not really in sound (there’s no 80’s retro here) but it just has that feeling to it; at least it does for me. The single ‘Supernatural Superserious’ is a great example of this.

R.E.M. is still a relevant band and Accelerate proves it.

The band are also one-third of an exciting summer tour that includes The National and Modest Mouse. They play the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto on June 8th and play twelve other dates including the tour opener in Vancouver. Tickets have already gone on sale. You can find a full list of dates on their MySpace page.

MySapce: R.E.M.
R.E.M.: Offical Website

Buy Accelerate