R.E.M. Collapse Into Now Review

Artist: REM
Album: Collapse Into Now
Label: Warner Bros.

Kicking into full-throttle after a bit of break since 2008. R.E.M., our beloved royalty from Georgia, break the silence with Collapse Into Now, their first full-length album since 2008’s Accelerate, adding to the stack of pop-ventures we have come to know from the Athens based arena-hall of famers whom span nearly a 30-year-period. Collapse stands as the band’s 15th full-length album produced by R.E.M. and Irish music-producer Jacknife Lee, who has produced the likes of The Black Keys, The Walkmen, The Cars, amongst others.

The album features appearances by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, and Peaches. Listeners should also expect a whole array of music-videos from this album, as the band is collaborating with an array of different directors, such as James Franco. The band plans to have a video for each track.

Collapse is a bit of a phenomena in itself, when part of the music world seems to respond to this release as being insignificant, culturally irrelevant, or on the other spectrum, one of the most solid bodies of work since New Adventures in Hi-Fi. During a Q&A on Dazeddigital.com, Stipe was asked how this album compares to their first, in which he replied, full-circle.

If anything, Collapse is, agreeably, an album of circulation. For decades, R.E.M. have been able to trudge across these stylistic barriers like roulette. Remaining to be every much a part of each genre they cross, like a rock-quilt.  It began with Murmur; it peaked, arguably, with Out of Time or Automatic for the People, and finally ended with Monster. Every R.E.M. nut has their own projected formula spanning the group’s existence in regards to their growth as a band.

The album kicks off with “Discover”, which is very much the album’s anthem track and very well placed at the top of the queue, carrying the momentum for the rest of the journey. The song carries some punchy fuzzed out tones in the verses, reminiscent of their Monster days.

Amongst some of the other album highlights, “Oh My Heart” brings back the jangly-balladeer sound we hear in “Texarkana” from Out of Time with gorgeous brass swells harking back the sounds and images of  New Orleans with a soupçon of the French Quarter and tear-jerking backup vocals on the chorus.

“Mine Smell Like Honey,” has one of the catchiest breakdowns I’ve heard in some time. The title line brings the song to a halt and right back into the thick of their Ramones-ing verses.

“Walk it Back,” revisits the Stipe we fell in love with in the nineties with the lonely piano driven ballads like “Tongue” (Monster) and “Nightswimming” (Automatic for the People).

“That Someone Is You,” a throwback to the pop-jangle lassoing us into infectious nostalgia and a Kinks-esque chorus line.

The legendary Patti Smith helps close the album with “Blue”, singing a very ghostly mantra “Cinderella Boy/ You lost your shoe” while Stipe delivers a maudlin and hairy soliloquy.

Old R.E.M. fans will not be able to say no to this record without damaging their allegiance. Devoted patrons will pick-up all of the old archetypal R.E.M sounds Buck, Stipe, and Mills can claim as signature to the band catechism, which still bare validation in-the-now and powerful engineering with the help of Jacknife. There is nothing timeless about Collapse other than the bands innate ability to condense the many gems of the American music demographic into their structure, from the western balladeer to country and various punk incantations. The band has some of the most influential people backing them in their entourage, whether it’s music or visual media. If not incredibly innovative with today’s demands upon digital release, R.E.M. remains one of the most relative all-incorporating bands to this day despite the slurs heard elsewhere.

Rating:  

Written by Casey Morris

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