(don’t Go back To) ROCKVILLE

“R.E.M. was at the Hole in the Wall [last] night and two-thirds of them were onstage. Peter Buck played with Minus 5 and Mike Mills played with Syd Straw, while Michael Stipe held court on the sidewalk.”

That’s this morning’s report from down in the Hole man Paul Minor. While some of us rocked by candlelight to the Athens trio’s forthcoming floor-boarder for Warner Bros. – their 14th – the band itself “held court” here in the heart of cow town at UT’s most venerable watering Hole. Paradox, irony, synchronicity?

Irony dials up Law of Rock No. 12: veteran rock acts of even the most modest integrity never want to repeat themselves. Their longsuffering fans, on the other hand, yearn for the glory days. These opposing forces usually rendezvous at the point that a group strips back down to its roots. In R.E.M.’s case, that came to life as 1994’s Monster (and to a lesser extent 1996 follow-up New Adventures in Hi-Fi), stiff-legged guitar farewell in the face of diminishing returns Up (1998), Reveal (2001), and Around the Sun (2004). The new Accelerate: third stone rocker from the Sun.

Peter Buck’s bayonet riff into lead-off “Living Well’s the Best Revenge” rips open Stipe’s stream of anger like Life’s Rich Pageant reanimated. Buck’s buzz saw then clears the sophomore slot for “Mansized Wreath,” Stipe’s best new millennial refrain integrated into the song’s gloriously frayed edges. Contrasting his youth, Stipe doesn’t just want to be heard now – he demands it. Nevertheless, he’s still best taken for the phrases that cry out while sticking to your cotton rock & roll tee like a burr. Stipe understands sound and meaning need never have met sometimes in a song bucking on the back of a kicking hook.

“All those sad and lost Apostles”
“Everybody looking like they just don’t care”
“Humiliation of your teenage station”

Batting third with the melodic echo of Automatic for the People’s “Man on the Moon,” and judging by its title intentionally so, “Supernatural Superserious” rockets an instant R.E.M. Hall of Famer. “Houston,” acoustic overlay with an almost industrial neon guitar pulse, name checks Laredo and Galveston. Side one of Accelerate: hellfire Reckoning for an already crumbling century. The bottom falls out of side two, the album’s mid-section sanding down raw edges into a brood far less memorable or compelling (i.e. the title track). “Sing for the Submarine” submerges its own structural logic and dies valiantly before going down. “Until the Day is Done” fidgets fitfully against the dying of the light.

Though essentially b-grade rockers, the disc’s final one-two puts pedal to the mettle in a farewell shot of Acceleration, “Horse to Water” ornery in riff, lyric, and disdain, and last track “I’m Gonna DJ,” debuting on last fall’s R.E.M Live, just the sort of throwaway ripe for these end times (“I’m gonna DJ at the end of the world!”).

Eleven tracks in 34 minutes. R.E.M.’s SXSW showcase tonight at Stubb’s, and an Austin City Limits taping tomorrow: friendly fire lighting up pretty persuasion.