Music

It starts, they said, with an earthquake. But for a while it looked like it would end with a whimper. REM’s last three albums, as any pub expert will tell you, reflected a post-Bill Berry interest vacuum. But while the loss of Berry, one of the band’s chief melodicians, surely had a major impact on the band’s musical wellbeing, a bigger problem is that REM are now old and rich. Career longevity and quantifiable success are good news if you’re Bono and can look to your bank statement for validation after someone questions your commitment. But if nervy outsiderdom is your USP, the comfort zone is an uncomfortable place to be. And so, oddly enough, going off the boil was probably the best thing that could have happened to them.

‘Accelerate’ is the reinvention album, complete  with de rigueur ‘hip young’ producer ‘Jacknife’ Lee (Bloc Party… er, Snow Patrol, U2). However, from the punkish fizz of ‘I’m Gonna DJ’ and the ascetic running time and arrangement of ‘Until The Day Is Done’ (which could otherwise have been ‘Everybody Still Hurts’) it’s clear the real impetus for change has come from the band themselves. A return to form, then, although admittedly this is ‘Monster’-level form rather than ‘Green’.