R.E.M.
Around The Sun

Let's clear one thing up right away: "Leaving New York" is the best song of the year. And, honestly, it's not even that much of a cheap shot as some accuse: it’s simply a delightful and moving ballad, yet another demonstration of how the "sacred monsters" from Athens are still capable, 20-plus years after their debut in the early '80s, of stirring emotions with predictable chords and a simple drum-bass-guitar-vocals line-up. "Leaving New York", which is already to be counted among the great classics of R.E.M. almost on par with the well-known "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts", would already be worth the price of the CD by itself.

New album, the thirteenth of their career, which for the first time sees the three champions of American Indie Rock on the cover image, though blurred: an album that reflects, many years after the glories of "Document" and "Green", the band's attitude to sing about the troubles and harsh realities of the U.S.A. and, more generally, the entire world. A reflection that, however, is not as pedantic and self-referential as many are capable of being, but rather absorbed, tense, at times pervaded by a hopeless apathy. This is the element that distinguishes the lyrics once again composed by the legendary Michael Stipe, a symbolic man of a band that between one album and the next has illustrated through its internal tensions the changes in the world itself.

Because if the previous "Reveal" (their worst work by far, bland and without ideas) wanted to be sunny and relaxing (it came out several months before September 11th), this "Around The Sun" presents us with the R.E.M. in one of their most successful and acclaimed guises: melancholic minstrels in a world that is moving forward too quickly for human measure and that is forgetting the true value and meaning of our lives. It's a Stipe who, after a long time, rediscovers the pleasure of speaking directly to people, thus explaining the absence of electric guitars, less suited to the album's Mood...the atmosphere is restrained, but alive at the same time.

Restrained is the chant "Electron Blue" which develops on a minimal-electronic carpet only to let go with the tense and decisive refrain; in "The Outsiders" we have a rather unusual beat for R.E.M. productions and a new guest voice following Katie Pierson, KRS One, Thurstoon Moore, and Patti Smith, namely the rapper Q-Tip (and here we are reminded of "Radio Song"). The reference album, for almost all the tracks, seems to be "Automatic For The People", one of the band's most beautiful: the wonderful ballad "Make It All Ok", simple yet moving in certain verses like "… you gave your ultimatum, but the world is too vast for us now; Jesus loves me, but his words sound off-key in these times..." and in these few phrases we could encapsulate the basic concept of the album. "Final Straw", strongly political and folkish, seems to be their reinterpretation of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero": again here, the album of inspiration is the masterpiece labeled 1992.

"I Wanted To Be Wrong", ethereal and polemical since the title, is a cry of rage from Stipe who in the Refrain says that "… all around it sounds like a song I can’t understand..."; "Wanderlust" is, surprisingly, an almost Britpop-style track from the '90s that brings to mind the poppier Blur; "Boy In The Well" is another acoustic ballad, quite nocturnal and "smoky", softened by the contribution of a Hammond organ; "Aftermath", a title reminiscent of the Rolling Stones and a pace that recalls something from the Waterboys or the Creedence Clearwater Revival, is instead the least successful track on the album. "High Speed Train" starts with feedback distortions as a background, minimalist piano, and distorted, suffocated noises, with Stipe revisiting himself in the epic times of the early cryptic classics, "Pilgrimage", "Stumble", and "Camera" ("… I jump on a high-speed train, I’ll never look back again, from Berlin, Kyoto or Marseille, I’ll go anywhere for you…”) and revisiting the travel theme, already addressed in "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". "The Worst Joke Ever" goes in a few seconds from the intimism à la "Country Feedback" with sound insertions of various kinds (a practice established since the controversial "Up") to the epic, dramatic refrain rich with bells, strings, and majestic chords for an overall feeling that is irremediably fatalistic. "The Ascent Of A Man" is more soulful, with a funk guitar and a pulsating bass, evolving then into a refrain that plays a lot on the contrast between Michael Stipe's low and high tones, even reminding of certain Pink Floyds from the '70s: one of the most interesting tracks.
It closes with the title track, "Around The Sun", sophisticated yet light… and by the way, you can catch a glimpse of Buck's typical Rickenbacker jingle jangle: the finale is a feast of choirs and colors, almost symbolizing the last hope("take a ride around the sun, world, hold on because I'm not jumping off yet...I want the sun on me, I want the truth to be free"), the hand stretched out to caress the world whispering the soft lullaby that puts the final word to this superb album.