It's easier to leave than to be left behind

Continuing my trip across the output of Athens' finest...

Around The Sun (2004)

And so we get to the point that I gave up on them - I remember this as being a very not good album, but maybe it will undergo a critical re-evaluation (the critical comments I've read recently suggest there's little danger of that though).  It's also the first R.E.M. album not to have "sides" - boooo.

1. Leaving New York
Not a terrible track - it starts a bit slow, but picks up well enough as we get to the chorus.  It's not quite sure what to do after that - but I can forgive them, particularly in the light of what is to come.

2. Electron Blue
This isn’t too bad either actually.

3. The Outsiders
But this is boring with a rubbish rap bit to boot.

4. Make It All Okay
This too is boring.

5. Final Straw
I actually quite liked this - it's picked up the pace a bit but it's still quite broody.

6. I Wanted To Be Wrong
I actually didn't mind this one either, but it's just not different enough from anything that's come previously to be worth bothering with.

7. Wanderlust
Whereas this is a bit different, but it's rubbish.

8. Boy In The Well
And we're back to tolerable by itself, but just blurring into the background.

9. Aftermath
Boring.

10. High Speed Train
WTF is this?

11. The Worst Joke Ever
This is really getting to be a chore now...

12. The Ascent Of Man
This is actually noteworthy - but only for being worse than most.

13. Around The Sun
And we finish with another boring one which they try to jazz up a bit towards the end, but they've lost any of my goodwill by this point...

Interestingly, I'd have to say a lot of these tracks could have easily squeezed on to NAIHF, Up or Reveal without feeling out of place or being obviously rubbish - but as a whole album they just overwhelm you with their underwhelmingness and by the end I was just begging for sweet release.  Basically, I quite like the album cover and a couple of tracks and that's about it.  It's important to include evidence from this period on my play list though and "Leaving New York", "Electron Blue" and "Final Straw" all fit the bill nicely, by being bearable if not exactly great.  Amusingly, on Amazon, the listener track ratings are 10 for "Leaving New York", 2 for "Electron Blue", 1 for "The Outsiders" and a big fat zero for every other track.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - I feel happy to just quote Peter Buck who said later that it "just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is: a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore".  It still did well commercially though - it got to #1 here and quite a few European countries, but only #13 in the US.

One final quote from WIkipedia tells us that "retrospectives of the band's career cite this album as their nadir" which does give me some hope for their final two albums which, whilst I've caught the odd track from them, I've never listened to as actual albums so I'm interested (if not exactly excited) to see what they give us. 

Reveal - A somewhat unfairly overlooked album
Accelerate - Their penultimate studio effort