The role that R.E.M., the seminal college rock band from Athens,
Ga., plays in the history and evolution of indie-alternative rock
is still hazy even now, almost 20 years since Murmur echoed through
dorm stereos for the first time.
With most of the band’s original fans now most likely
tucked away in the fairer parts of suburbia, most of today’s
indie kids only think of “Man on The Moon” or the
aging-grunge of R.E.M’s last essential release, 1994’s
Monster. In the blank spaces of their recent chronology, frontman
Michael Stipe has started producing subversive films
(“Saved”), working with left-leaning organizations and
generally raising trouble for members of the Bush administration.
In all the D.I.Y. spirit of the ’60s, Stipe, drummer Bill
Berry and the rest of the band go for broke on the blunt and
polarizing Around The Sun.
“It’s easy to leave than to be left behind,”
Stipe croons on the album-opening “Leaving New York.”
From a band whose cryptic, often poetic lyrics may well be its true
legacy, this new, abstract sentimentality is beyond disappointing.
Lines like, “As I raise my hand to broadcast my
objection,” might fly during the revelry of a rally but sink
on the closed space of a studio album.
Straightforward, elegant song-writing has defined the peaks of
R.E.M.’s career. In their early years, one could pick out
each instrument during their arrangments. The listener could pluck
out the guitar, appreciate the flexible riff and yet soak in the
entire melody. What forced the listener to return was the
effortless arrangement of guitars and percussion that sounded
dually lo-fi and lush. They coated Stipe’s admittedly
difficult lyrics with a palatable shell of indie-rock. They were a
band that embraced contrast. Post-punk, psychadelic pop and
Americana flowed into their filter and emerged as college rock.
With a evolution of small, flexible adjustments rather than
reinvention, they were the ultimate generalists. Around The Sun is
the sound of a aging beast, wounded by its own indecision.
Maybe because they hold such a strong place in the college
memories of so many, even this limp album fails to do real damage
to R.E.M’s legacy. Even though the sound is bleached out,
even though the lyrics are beyond insipid, the band’s history
is safe. Like their aging fanbase, R.E.M. has begun to pick up the
fraying scraps of the past. Their shockingly passionate midlife
crisis, best seen in 1996’s dazzling New Adventures in Hi-Fi,
has vanished. Around the Sun is lukewarm rebellion, left cold in a
pool of droning synthesizers and reheated just in time for
November. They’ve become elder statesmen to forward their
cause, but there’s a reason the old guard generally
doesn’t make great records.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars