Collapse Into Now

2011年リリースの15枚目の作品で前作に続き Jacknife Lee、プロデュース作品。残念ながらこのオリジナル・アルバムを最後に活動は終わってしまった。

Rolling Stone - 4 stars out of 5 -- "COLLAPSE INTO NOW touches on all their favorite tricks: punk raves, stately ballads, piano accordion and the most mandolin they've put in one place since 'Losing My Religion.'" Spin - "COLLAPSE mostly sounds like a familiar friend -- reliable in all the best ways, but still capable of quietly insinuating surprises." Entertainment Weekly - "[T]he acoustic lilt of 'It Happened Today' melts into a sweet, wordless coda powered by Mike Mills' epic harmonies..." -- Grade: B Billboard - "As positive as it is poetic, COLLAPSE INTO NOW rolls all of R.E.M.'s varied sonic adventures into a concentrated 41 minutes of mostly short, tight and fat-free songs." Uncut - 3 stars out of 5 -- "The closing track, 'Blue', is a sonorous, sprawling and altogether seductive dirge, Stipe's distorted, distracted spoken monologue counterpointed by the backing vocals of Patti Smith." Record Collector - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Walk It Back' is a beautiful pregnant pause of a track, and 'Uberlin' finds Stipe's stream of consciousness flowing still." Rolling Stone - Ranked #16 in Rolling Stone's '50 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "[A] stately summary of their folk-pop senescence..." Magnet - Ranked #6 in Magnet's '20 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "[I]f you listen for signs of a band on its last legs, you'll come up empty."

Righting themselves via their long-awaited return to rock Accelerate, R.E.M. regrouped and rediscovered their core strengths as a band, strengths they build upon on its 2011 sequel, Collapse into Now. R.E.M. also embrace their past to the extent that they disdain the modern, reveling in their comfortable middle age even if they sometimes slip into geezerhood, with Michael Stipe spending more than one song wondering about kids these days. Over a tight 41 minutes, they touch upon all the hallmarks from their early career, perhaps easing up on the jangle but devoting plenty of space to rough-hewn acoustics and mandolin, rushing rock & roll, and wide-open, eerie mood pieces. Overall, Collapse into Now delivers R.E.M. sounding like R.E.M., something that was in short supply during the 2000s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine|

3年ぶりの新作。ライヴを意識したロック色の濃い前作『Accelerate』の延長線上にあるような作りで、マンドリンを使ったフォーク曲やピアノ・バラードもじっくり聴かせることにより、R.E.M.らしさを一層アピールしている。その点にキャリア30年のヴェテランらしい安定を感じさせるものの、客演のピーチズやパティ・スミスが作品に不穏な空気を加え、老け込むにはまだ早いとバンドに発破をかけているようにも!?
bounce (C)山口智男