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ALBUMS OUT IN MARCH
to escape the feeling that the band have struggled to
recapture their creative peaks.
Well, relief all round then… REM’s 14th studio album is
their best in over a decade. Recorded in Dublin, Vancouver
and hometown Athens, and produced by Jacknife Lee
(Snow Patrol, Bloc Party) and the band themselves,
Accelerate demonstrates that Michael Stipe and co. and
have learnt how to rock out again. Clocking in at just
under 40 minutes, these 11 punchy tracks are a raucous
but melodic delight. The opening trio of songs (including
opening single ‘Supernatural Superserious’) are all loud and
upbeat stompers, instantly boasting the classic REM sound
characterised by Peter Buck’s jangly fretwork and Stipe’s
vocals. The quiet-loud-quiet template of ‘Hollow Man’
takes things down a peg, but there’s no let up in melody
department, while the short ‘Houston’ is darker and more
brooding, with an almost spoken vocal line. The title track is
REM
another mid-album highlight, which lyrically reinforces the
theme of frustration that runs through the album. ‘Where’s
Accelerate
the rip chord, the trap door, the key? Where is the cartoon
(Warners) escape hatch for me? No time to question the choices I’ve
made, I’ve got to follow another direction – accelerate!’ It’s
When REM’s contract with Warners came up for renewal in a possible future single, as is ‘Until The Day Is Done, which
1997, the label re-signed them for a rumoured $80million is again less frenetic but naggingly catchy.
– at the time the most expensive recording deal in history. Accelerate is a big-sounding and ambitious record, tinged
It must have caused some distress to the label’s accountants with the band’s trademark melancholy and wonderment.
that since that time the band have failed to match the More importantly for the listener, it’s an album that you’re
commercial success of their early 90s masterpieces, Out Of likely to want to return to again and again. DH
Time and Automatic For The People. While the albums Up, Out: 31 March
Reveal and Around The Sun have had their fans, it’s diffi cult +++++
HERCULES & MOBY THE B-52S
LOVE AFFAIR Last night Funplex (EMI)
Hercules & Love (Mute) For an indication of The
Aff air (EMI/DFA) Whatever fondness you B-52s legacy, you need
Don’t be put off by the might feel for Moby, or only glance at the remixes
whiff of ‘trendier than thou’ hype that currently surrounds however much you might still treasure your copy of Play, for the band’s new single, ‘Funplex’, the title track of their
New Yorker Andrew Butler, who together with a rotating could anyone really claim that his subsequent output has fi rst album in 16 years. Peaches, Scissor Sisters and Cansei
collective of guest vocalists makes up Hercules & Love Aff air. either bettered or even rivaled that 1999 masterpiece? If de Ser Sexy have all been infl uenced by the Athens natives’
Emerging from the NYC art scene and signing up with the that album was the culmination of his preceding decade skewed fusion of pop, surf, avant-garde, amateurish punk
fêted DFA label has ensured plenty of column inches in the of musical exploration, both 2002’s 18 and 2005’s Hotel and white funk. The parent album clatters out of the traps
style press, and the somewhat outlandish suggestion that sounded a little unfocused and anaemic by comparison. with the genuinely exciting ‘Pump’, pivoted on a thrillingly
he’s single-handedly help trigger a disco revival. Last Night, sadly, continues his meandering path towards propulsive synthesiser hook, proving they can still rock even
Their eponymous debut album is a slick and accomplished musical irrelevance. In fact, on certain tracks here he’s all if these days they’re a little more ‘OAP’ than ‘CSS’. Similarly,
off ering, which goes some way to explaining the but admitted as much himself. ‘Everyday It’s 1989’ sounds ‘Funplex’ also hits the aural G-spot, with reassuringly batty
excitement around the act but also keeps that hype in exactly as its title suggests. It’s an old-skool house track; a lyrics, and frontman Fred Schneider’s campy declaiming cry
check. All those disco comparisons can be traced directly great exercise in nostalgia that old school ravers may love, of ‘Faster pussycat thrill thrill, I’m in the mall on a diet pill’,
back to ‘Hercules Theme’, which is a delicious homage to 70s but will probably prompt nothing more than an indiff erent pitched perfectly against Cindy Wilson’s recognisably shrill
disco, with stabbing strings, synthesized brass, and breathy, shrug from anyone else. The same criticism could be vocal harmonies. It’s precisely how you’d imagine a B-52s
orgasmic vocals. It’s ‘Yes Sir I Can Boogie’ crossed with the levelled at ‘I Love To Move In Here’ and ‘Disco Lies’, which comeback single to sound in 2008.
theme tune from The Professionals. If only the whole album sound like the sort of lightweight house tunes you might Therein lies the problem. Apparently the B-52s elected
was as good as this. Much of your enjoyment of the rest have picked up on a pirate rave station circa 1990. The one’s producer Steve Osborne after hearing his work on New
will depend upon your appreciation of the voice of Antony without suffi cient oomph to achieve crossover success. Order’s Get Ready, and the problems that dogged that
Hegarty (of Antony & The Johnsons fame), as he features Other tracks elicit adjectives no more passionate than return also arise here: faced with the mocking shadow of
on fi ve of the ten tracks. At his best, he comes across like a ‘effi cient’ and ‘slick’, such as the big diva vocals of ‘Live For history, Funplex spends 11 tracks doing exactly what you’d Y
AN
pansexual Nina Simone (‘Easy’), while on other tracks he’s a Tomorrow’ or opener ‘Ooh Yeah’. Highlights – if one were to expect of it, meaning that a lot of it passes in a pleasingly
A
R
Y
R
second-rate Sylvester (‘Raise Me Up’). be generous – include the dark, hypnotic groove of ‘Alice’ inconsequential blur. While there are some strong tracks
G
Butler is a man who clearly loves music, and has analysed and the bluesy vocals and echoey beats of ‘I’m In Love’, here (‘Ultraviolet’, ‘Juliet Of The Spirits’), halfway through the AND
the beats that makes us dance, from disco brass and Cuban while closer ‘Last Night’ is a lush electro ballad in the vein of constant roof-raising grates, as it starts to sound like sound
funk to Asian-infl uenced tom-tom shuffl es. This debut may Vangelis’ ‘Love Theme’ from Blade Runner. Sadly, it’s a little like your drunk mother hosting an ailing soirée, and through
HUDSON
be a hit and miss aff air, but there’s enough passion and bit too little and too late. One for die-hard fans only. DH a clenched-teeth grin insisting ‘Come on everybody – get
knowing to edge it ahead of the electro pack. DH Out: 24 March up and dance! It’s a party!’ GR
S
:
D
A
VID
Out: 10 March +++++ Out: 24 March
W
+++++ +++++
VIE
RE
!
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