R.E.M.

While Accelerate is louder and faster than any R.E.M. album in over a decade, its energy is merely a byproduct of the real triumph here: R.E.M. sound like a band again. They start strong and just get better over the first three tracks, as Buck's shimmering riffs interlock with Mills' melodic bass runs and clarion harmonies, lifting Stipe's vocals to another plane. Even "Hollow Man," which starts as a tender piano ballad, can't help getting big and beefy when the chorus rolls around. By abandoning any pretense of forging new ground, R.E.M. rediscover the joy of rocking. (This version of the record includes two non-album tracks and three live cuts.)

When their original drummer, Bill Berry, quit in 1997, R.E.M. became more than "a
three-legged dog," as singer Michael Stipe famously put it at the time. Stipe, guitarist Peter
Buck and bassist Mike Mills actually turned into a pair of trios, two very different bands, for
the next ten years. One was the studio R.E.M. of Up, Reveal and Around the Sun: wounded
but determined, making a stately, reflective pop rich in psychedelic luster and h... More >