Accelerate＜限定盤＞

長らく絶版になっていた2008年にリリースされたR.E.M.の14枚目で最後のスタジオ・アルバムが180g重量盤LPでリリース。

前作『Around the Sun』からの脱却を意図したこのアルバムは、アグレッシブで目的意識の強いサウンドが評価された。スタイプは、『Accelerate』の歌詞は現代の国情に触発されたものだと語り、「帝国がトイレに落ちているとき、偉大で怒りに満ちた曲を書くのは簡単だ」と語っている(『Spin』誌)。ビルボード200で初登場2位を獲得し、18週間チャートインした。

For years, R.E.M. promised that their next album would be a rocker, an oath to fans that perhaps made sense during the early '90s, when they were exploring the pastoral fields of Out of Time and the gloomy folk of Automatic for the People, but in the years after Bill Berry's 1997 departure, the desire of longtime fans for the group to rock again was merely a code word for the wish that R.E.M. would sound like a band again. Apart from a few fleeting moments -- "The Great Beyond," their "Man in the Moon" re-write for the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic, Man in the Moon; "Bad Day," a mid-'80s outtake revived for a greatest-hits album -- R.E.M. not only didn't sound like a band, but they seemed at odds with themselves and their very strengths, culminating in the amorphous, mummified Around the Sun, a record so polished and overworked it didn't sound a bit like R.E.M., not even like the art-pop outfit the band turned into after Berry's retirement. It was a situation so dire that the band recognized the need for corrective steering, so they stripped themselves down to bare-bones for 2008's Accelerate. In every way Accelerate is the opposite of Around the Sun: at 36 minutes, it's defiantly lean, it's heavy on Peter Buck's guitars and Mike Mills backing vocals, its songs don't drift, they attack. Even the songs constructed on acoustics feel like they're rockers, maybe because they hearken back to the eerie, ramshackle grace of "Swan Swan H" whose riff echoes through both "Houston" and "Until the Day Is Done." This is not the only time that R.E.M. deliberately refers to the past on Accelerate, but reverential self-reference is the whole idea of this project: they're embracing their past, building upon the legacy and the very sound of such underground rock landmarks as Lifes Rich Pageant and Document. Not that this album could be mistaken for an exhumed classic from the '80s: Michael Stipe's lyrics are forthright and never elliptical, and the same could be said about the music, as it's sonically streamlined and precise, hallmarks of a veteran band. One of the benefits of being veterans is knowing how to create a record this focused, and Accelerate benefits greatly from its concentrated blast of guitars, as the brevity of the album makes R.E.M. seem vital even as they're dredging up the past. By no longer denying the jangle and pop that provided a foundation for the group's success, they sound like a band again. Such praise dangerously threatens to oversell Accelerate, however, suggesting that the album has either the unearthly mystique of Murmur or the ragged enthusiasm of Reckoning when it has neither. This is a careful, studied album from a band that knew they were on the brink of losing their audience and, worse, their identity. Accelerate finds R.E.M. attempting to reconnect with their music, with what made them play rock & roll in the first place, instead of methodically resurrecting a faded myth. They reconnect handsomely, creating an album the can stand next to work from their peers, like Dinosaur Jr.'s exceptional comeback Beyond and Sonic Youth's casually vital Rather Ripped (whose "Incinerate" reverberates in the dissonant open-ended "Accelerate"). As comebacks go, that's relatively modest, but the very modesty of Accelerate is what makes it such a successful rebirth as R.E.M. no longer denies what they were or what they are, and, in doing so, they offer a glimpse of what they could be once again. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

ここ10年間のREMは、〈世界でもっとも重要なロックンロール・バンドのひとつ〉という看板が悲痛に思えるほど、一部のメディアが発する酷評に疲弊していた。しかし、昨年リリースされたライヴCD＋DVD『Live』で本格的な復活の予兆を見せ、ついに本作でその鋭気が爆発! 〈全盛期の輝き〉ではなく、〈いまが全盛期〉と言わんばかりの気炎を上げまくっているのだ。その最たるものが、超大物ロック・バンドとは思えないほどにシンプルでタイトな演奏だろう。これらは、あの88年作『Green』を彷彿とさせるほどにフレッシュでラウド。饒舌なメロディーも光っている。こんな音を聴かされたら、誰もが名盤だと認めざるを得ないだろう。だからみんな、もう一度REMに帰ってこいよ!　　　
bounce (C)冨田 明宏