R.E.M. News

R.E.M. are working towards a new album, titled Accelerate. It is the band's first studio album since the forgettable Around The Sun, which started well then faded away. Bertis Downs, the R.E.M. manager, has said the laid back reflection of the previous album has gone and this will be much faster rock. I fear another Monster but remain hopeful that Accelerate will be a great return for the Athens trio.

There is very little on the band's official website, http://www.remhq.com/ but there is a new site to promote the album: http://ninetynights.com/. It's kind of a weird video blog with some HD downloads.

Accelerate is released on March 31st in the UK and we expect the first single release in the weeks before. The official fan site http://www.murmurs.com/ (thanks to them for the new album cover, pieced together from the official site) has non-downloadable 30 second intro to new song Supernatural Superserious which is sounding great.

Here is the probable tracklisting:

• Living Well's the Best Revenge
• Man Sized Wreath
• Supernatural Superserious
• Hollow Man
• Houston
• Accelerate
• Until the Day is Done
• Mr. Richards
• Sing for the Submarine
• Horse to Water
• I'm Gonna DJ

Meanwhile R.E.M. have been playing live, and have enjoyed a residency in Dublin, Ireland. They have previewed about 17 new songs live but only 11 (predictably) made it to the album. Some left over for b-sides I'm sure. Closer I'm Gonna DJ is a quirky number that has fans divided and a few that did work live: Staring Down The Barrel and On The Fly are nowhere to be seen. That's all I could get from the murmurs.com forums

The live tour website is http://www.remdublin.com/.