Finally. Something to be excited about.As far as I'm concerned, the first album to really get excited for this year is the new one from REM, Collapse Into Now, due on March 8.
Before you read any further, go to remhq.com and send the band your e-mail to get a link to download a new single, "Discoverer,"an even-paced, mid-tempo rocker with a good dose of distortion that's got a little of that old Monster sound. If you've followed the band, the it's a sound that would sound at home on the band's last one, Accelerate.
If you haven't been following the band recently, Accelerate was a really great album. A return to the early '90s for the band -- a period when they were comfortable kings of the newly commercially viable alternative rock world. In fact, a case could be made that REM invented alternative rock with their first single "Radio Free Europe" and album, Murmur, a watershed record that would influence every alt and indie rocker after. Go back and listen to Murmur and Reckoning, perhaps the best 1 and 2 punch by a brand new rock band ever.
