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R.E.M. – Discoverer

I think we can all agree that R.E.M. is the best American alt-rock band of all-time (hell, let’s just say it: the best American band. Period). This is an objective fact – like saying the sky is blue or the crazy white girl sitting next to Spike Lee at MSG tonight has enormous breasts.

And though the Hilson roots with Peter and the Mikes harken back to my days as a wee tot singing “It’s The End of The World As We Know It” to Miss Chong in her barber shop in Marietta, I’m perfectly willing to admit that R.E.M.’s post-Bill Berry output is a hit-and-miss affair, and further, that Around The Sun is a half-assed abortion on par with “Godfather 3,” the last four Weezer albums, the Boca Burger and all the other bad-idea-on-paper, bad-idea-in-reality calamities of yore.

Now that I’ve established my critical neutrality, I can tell you in full faith that this new MP3 is, for lack of better descriptors, shit hot.

Looks like the “we’re back, bitches,” amps-cranked rock ‘n roll of Accelerate gets another go on the forthcoming long-player Collapse Into Now (March 8 – mark your calendar), and that the first sound you’ll hear from that album is a big, flush Eastern-tinged electric guitar lifted wholesale from Monster’s “You” excites me enough to write a sentence this long.

After a few semi-shouted Stipe verses – think “The Wake Up Bomb,” but with the tiniest bit of age-attributed vocal strain – “Discoverer” really takes off about a minute in with a massive hard rock riff introducing the chorus. I could take or leave the Talking Heads-y “DISCOVERER!” refrain, but the one-word post-chorus works on an album opener/statement of purpose-type level… And, yeah, I’m gonna be mouthing “DISCOVERER!” as I try in vain to fall asleep tonight.

Stipe’s rousing delivery upgrades the bridge from mere placeholder, as he sounds not unlike the thirty-something who sang about rocking bootcut jeans, getting drunk and singing along to Queen. And really, this is what I’m looking for in my rock stars.

Concluding with the anthemic firepower the first 120 seconds promised, “Discoverer,” on the whole, seems to have found its way from a particularly guitar-happy ’95 rehearsal and, should you spend the next 3:31 wisely, deep into your earhole.

- Robbie