R.E.M. Collapse Into Now (Warner)
2/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Where next exactly for R.E.M.? Incredibly, it’s now 30 years since the release of the alt-rock veterans’ classic debut single ‘Radio Free Europe’, but they’ve remain stalled at the career crossroads ever since the departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997. Collapse Into Now, the trio’s fifteenth studio album, finds them no more sure of their present-day merits as they were on 2004’s directionless Around The Sun.
2008’s Accelerate was hailed in some quarters as a display of commendable economy after the Athens, GA outfit got increasingly long-winded after reaching a commercial and critical zenith shortly after the grunge bubble burst in the early nineties, but there’s little evidence here of a resolution to an identity crisis that’s been rumbling on now for the best part of two decades.
‘All The Best’ finds singer Michael Stipe (who turned 50 last year) in bullish mood, promising to ‘show the kids how to it.’, But it’s not long before he’s bemoaning the fact on ‘Oh My Heart’ that ‘the kids have a new take’. If this insecurity suggests a band out of touch with the 21st century zeitgeist, then this album’s star guest vocalists– Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith – hardly suggest a band deeply in thrall to contemporary music either. ‘Collapse Into Now’ often feels like a band running on empty, even containing a meditation on fame and artistic legacy entitled ‘Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando And I’, directly referencing Neil Young’s 1979 ruminative ‘Pocahontas’, which also name-checked the legendary actor.
The problem that has plagued recent REM offerings hasn't been solved - all too frequently, reminders of superior moments in their sizeable back catalogue pop up. The elegiac ‘Überliner’ echoes ‘Drive’, the opening track on 1992 high-water mark Automatic For The People, whilst ‘Blue’ is a retread of 1996’s ‘E-Bow The Letter’. The punchy ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’ and the glam gobbledygook of ‘Alligator, Aviator, Autopilot, Antimatter’ hark back to 1994’s Monster, none of which really counts as terrifically high praise.
Collapse Into Now? For all their influence on indie-rock’s most notable recent graduates to the enormodome – Arcade Fire, Elbow, The National - this record really couldn’t feel less of the moment.
R.E.M. "Oh My Heart" by Warner Music Group DE
Artists in this article: R.E.M.
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