On their new release, Collapse Into Now (available on vinyl and CD on March, 8, 2011), R.E.M. mines the sound of their two most successful CDs, 1990’s Out of Time and 1992’s Automatic For the People. Foregoing the raw, direct guitar sound of 2008’s Accelerate, Collapse Into Now revisits the folky, acoustic/string sound that made those aforementioned CDs so accessible.
On “UBerlin” bassist Mike Mills’ distinctive background vocal call out like an old friend, while lead vocalist Michael Stipe’s “hey now”s recall the “Hey kids” cry of Automatic’s “Drive.” However, the song is more sprite, like 1999’s “The Great Beyond,” with celestial reference and gently expanding synthesizers. “Discover” has a guitar edge, but it made more grandiose and layered by accompanying piano and keyboards. “It Happened One Day” is pleasant, pumping, county fair Americana, with Mills’ singing cascading in a major key.
The band incorporates mandolin (it’s hard not to think “Losing My Religion”) on the maudlin but inspired “Oh My Heart.” “Oh My Heart” might be the best song Stipe has penned and/or sung in a long time. Stipe has often claimed lyrical depth under the guise of irony and campiness, but there is no Stipe-like posturing when he offers such allusions as “the storm didn’t kill me/the government changed” and “I came home to a city/ half-erased/this place needs me here/to here”
The guitar drive of “Mine Smells Like Honey” sounds like a throw off, something improvised off the cuff in the studio, but it has a strong enough refrain to keep interesting.
R.E.M. is past the time of groundbreaking, but Collapse Into Now is workmanlike good.
— Courtesy of TVD Staff Writer Jeff Ehrbar / HearSayNow
