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By
Erik Hage
 This
month, a little mop-up on albums released so far in 2008 that
need to be mentioned. First up, R.E.M.: What moves
do they have in them after all these years? These are the
godfathers of alternative rock, who started releasing important
albums back when it was still called “college rock.” In my
rural high school in the late ’80s, being an R.E.M. listener
was either a mark of distinction or emasculation, depending
upon who was viewing you. (Smiths albums, you simply hid.)
Early on, in the ’80s, R.E.M. seemed to construct their own
mythology in songs that seemed outside time or place—forward-thinking
but with ancient resonance. Later, they became this gigantic
band, with sweeping gestures and U2-like ambition. Still later,
after 1997, when drummer Bill Berry left, they became a sort
of high-minded “concept” band on record, forgetting that,
at their core, they had always been a band who rocked. (As
anyone who has seen the feral intensity of their live shows
will attest.)
Accelerate,
released in April, tries to undo some of that and return to
those rock roots. In ancestry, this album is closest to 1986’s
Lifes Rich Pageant, which remains my favorite. With
ex-Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin and old guitar ally Scott
McCaughey on board, the group offer a kiln blast of literate
guitar scorchers: “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” “Man-Sized
Wreath,” “Supernatural Superserious.”
 Michael
Stipe’s voice sounds big, primordial and dangerous again,
and Mike Mills, the most distinctive backing singer ever,
howls and whines like a cherub. Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey
slash unspecifically, laying guitar heat everywhere. At times,
it sounds convincing; at others it sounds calculated, like
a group laying into it for dear life while spinning on the
rim of obsolescence. Their best album in over a decade? Sure.
Let’s leave it at that.
One of my favorite albums of the year so far comes from the
Last Shadow Puppets, a side project between Arctic
Monkeys leader Alex Turner and Miles Kane, a Liverpool musician
from a band you’ve never heard of. Turner is a strikingly
young man (he was born the year Lifes Rich Pageant came
out) yet rhymes about affairs of the heart like a middle-aged
intellectual attuned to Raymond Carver and John Cheever. (And
that was just with the Arctic Monkeys.) On The Age of the
Understatement, Turner and Kane luxuriate in sweeping,
strings-buffeted chamber-pop that calls to mind the heyday
of Burt Bacharach or the brief window of time in the mid-’60s
when the Walker Brothers’ “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”
was in the hearts of sophisticated lovers everywhere. But
these pixie-voiced Northern Brits also make something unique,
their collaboration bearing richest fruit in the distilled
and perfect two minutes of “Standing Next to Me.”
 Back
to the Athens, Ga., oldsters: The B-52’s are back with
Funplex, and there is something immutable about this
band. They still sound like no one else and still sound the
same: Fred Schneider’s gay carnival barker shouts, the H.R.
Pufnstuf siren calls of Cindy and Kate, the wobbly guitars.
The B-52’s don’t aspire to much more than making fun party
music (completely lacking edginess and danger). This one,
like all of the others, is a whole lot of fun and completely
appropriate for the occasion. 30 years and counting, with
trends having come and gone: God bless ’em.
In 2007, another enduring phenom, Nick Cave—who is
also fun, in his own creepy way—returned to the dark and primitive
sludge of the Birthday Party with his Grinderman side project.
He maintains some of that savage edge with the most recent
album with the Bad Seeds, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
There is some of the scalding edge of Iggy and the Stooges
here (“Albert Goes West”), as well as some freaky horror music
(“Night of the Lotus Eaters”). Elsewhere, there’s simply some
trippy, groovy darkness (“Midnight Man,” which I swear has
a faint echo of Duran Duran’s “Rio”). Not for the uninitiated,
but for those keyed in to Cave’s gleeful blackness, it’s ambrosia.
During the Foo Fighters’ set at the recent Who tribute on
VH1, Supergrass singer Gaz Coombes took over vocals
on “Bargain” and just a-ripped it open. It reminded me to
check up on what that other band from Oxford, England (not
Radiohead), have been up to. Supergrass have been churning
out ambitious, snappy fuzz-pop since 1994, and Diamond
Hoo Ha shows them to be doggedly consistent: never blowing
your mind, but remaining cheeky, hard-edged and smart. “Bad
Blood” is tough and ragged, while “Diamond Hoo Ha” is a fascinating
blend of crotch-rock wallop and complex dynamics.
 Jack
White’s Raconteurs possess the same contrast of brains
and roughness. Those who thought the White Stripes svengali
was just dabbling on the side for a one-off were wrong, and
with co-conspirator Brendan Benson at his side, they’re back
with Consolers of the Lonely. “Salute Your Solution”
sounds like the Beastie Boys tackling Quadrophenia-era
Who, and it really works. “You Don’t Understand Me” flips
the tables: It’s a stadium-sized, eyes-scrunched-shut, ’70s-rock
anthem. “The Switch and the Spur” sounds like it belongs on
a lost psych-era rock-opera album, either the Small Faces’
Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake or the Pretty Things’ S.F.
Sorrow. (Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all night,
pulling obscure references out of my ass. Please tip your
waitress.) “Rich Kid Blues” is just crazy—it sounds like Southern
rock during a psychotic breakdown. There’s so much scope on
the album, it’s hard to take in. A double-live album would
congeal things for me.
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