This is the one we\u2019ve been waiting for. <\/p>\n
Yes, R.E.M. used to loom so much larger in the American musical consciousness, the college rock juggernaut of the 80s, forefathers of half the alt-\/indie-rock bands of the past 20 years\u2026 and then they got famous, and then they got experimental, and then they lost Bill Berry, and then they wandered off into the dreamy-electro forest for a bit\u2026 but they never lost the core of what made them great in the first place, which is the utterly unique combination of musical sensibilities represented in surrealist poet Michael Stipe, melodic rocker Peter Buck and dynamic multi-instrumentalist Mike Mills. Even in the depths of the aughts, there were flickers and signs that R.E.M. was far from done, that they had another great album in them yet (and maybe more).<\/p>\n
Collapse Into Now<\/i> is that album\u2014a wonderfully-named disc that takes the rocking soul of classic R.E.M., the melodic folk-pop of Out Of Time<\/i>\/Automatic For The People<\/i>, and the electronic experimentalism of Up<\/i>-though-Around The Sun<\/i>, and collapses them into an surprisingly cohesive whole representing what this band sounds and feels like in the present moment.<\/p>\n
It sounds damned good.<\/p>\n
Collapse<\/i> begins with a bang as the ringing, anthemic \u201cDiscoverer\u201d rockets out of your speakers, hammering and falling back in a wonderfully spacious arrangement that accentuates both the passion of Stipe\u2019s vocals and Bucks\u2019 sinewy lead guitar. \u201cAll The Best\u201d is the two in this one-two punch, a full-on attack from the very first beat that\u2019s as ecstatically hard-driving as anything the group has recorded in years.<\/p>\n
With \u201cUberlin\u201d and \u201cOh My Heart,\u201d the boys dip into Automatic<\/i>-flavored orchestral folk-pop, executing beautifully as ever, with the added texture of horns on the latter. \u201cIt Happened Today\u201d picks up the pace again, offering an airy acoustic opening that gathers and builds steadily, driving towards a magnificent, multilayered crescendo that fades into a dreamy synth wash that you didn\u2019t even realize was lurking underneath. <\/p>\n
\u201cDreamy\u201d also describes the echoey open to \u201cEvery Day Is Yours To Win\u201d (Charlie Sheen\u2019s new theme song?), which features Stipe, Buck and bells in a sort of spoken-word vignette rich with atmospherics.\u00a0 In fact, on this track the real star may be the production by Jacknife Lee and the band, full of space and subtle textures.<\/p>\n
The old trademark R.E.M. jangle resurfaces with the faintly absurdist \u201cMine Smell Like Honey\u201d (anyone for an \u201cOrange Crush\u201d?), full of 4\/4 drive, intriguing dynamics, and fat background vocals courtesy of Mr. Mills.\u00a0 Here Stipe\u2019s sound-painting wordplay is at the fore again as he urges: \u201cDig a hole, dig it deeper, deeper \/ Climb a mountain, climb it steeper, steeper.\u201d \u201cWalk It Back\u201d harks back to \u201cEverybody Hurts\u201d with its unusually direct narrative and simple blues-ballad arrangement, a brief interlude before another of this album\u2019s highlights. <\/p>\n
The title declared it was going to be either a blast or a bomb; it\u2019s a blast. \u201cAlligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter\u201d is a rock and roll poetry slam, a 2:45 piledriver with Stipe and guest Peaches trading vocals, riffing furiously on Stipe\u2019s manic word jumbles while the band throws a raucous party behind them. \u201cThat Someone Is You\u201d is the caffeine chaser to \u201cAlligator,\u201d a reeling 1:44 coda. The quixotic song titles continue with \u201cMe, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando And I,\u201d a searching ballad that actually seems to be about something, for once\u2014the dark side of fame and hero-worship. Buck\u2019s mandolin work is exquisite as always, even if it\u2019s a challenge to notice it without thinking of \u201cLosing My Religion\u201d (sorry Peter\u2026 the price of success). <\/p>\n
The album closes with \u201cBlue,\u201d a psychedelic collage of sound that includes Stipe speed-riffing his stream-of-consciousness poetry deep in the mix while his idol and sometime muse Patti Smith drones foreground vocals and Buck and Smith\u2019s guitarist Lenny Kaye drape the sky with thrumming, sitar-like guitar lines.\u00a0 It\u2019s surrealism at its finest, the nexus where rock and roll becomes art. \u201cBlue\u201d then false-ends around 4:05, its final drone drawn out until it revives as the opening sequence of \u201cDiscoverer,\u201d completing the cycle and aurally representing the \u201ccollapse into now\u201d that is both a line in \u201cBlue\u201d and the album\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
Time will tell where Collapse Into Now<\/i> ends up ranking within the substantial body of work that is the R.E.M. catalogue.\u00a0 But right now, today, it feels like it belongs among their finest, a glorious shout from 30 years into this fabled band\u2019s run: \u201cwe\u2019re still here: game on!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5748],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42283","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-r-e-m","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42283"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}