Although R.E.M.’s new album, Collapse Into Now, isn’t releasing until March 8th, they’ve been awesome enough to tide us over and whet our appetites with new songs and videos over the last couple of months. I’m a huge R.E.M. fan and when I first heard that Collapse Into Now was supposed to sound like “classic R.E.M.” I was both ridiculously excited and honestly a tad skeptical. Not only have they managed to stay together for over 30 years but they’ve always exhibited growth as musicians, maintained relevancy and continued to pump out great, fresh, unique music without repeating themselves. So for me, the term “classic R.E.M.” could go either way. It could mean they just revisited familiar territory that they know works for them or it could mean they found out how to summon that raw emotion, jangly guitar, disjointed lyrical direction of their earlier work in a present, new way. After hearing a few of the new songs and watching the teaser video they just released, all signs point to the latter. R.E.M. is still firing on all cylinders with no signs of slowing down or retreading on previous ground. Michael’s voice is crystal clear and his lyrics appear to be as beautifully scattered as ever, Peter’s deceptively simple guitar work shimmers and growls in all the right places and Mike’s bass work and background vocals are still providing that fluid foundation that works so perfectly for their music. I couldn’t be more excited for Collapse Into Now to be released and hopefully they had a good enough time recording in Nashville to revisit us on tour.
Collapse Into Now will be released on March 8th and you can find more info at www.remhq.com.
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