Recent Rock Turtleneck honorees R.E.M. have launched a viral, guerilla teaser campaign to build anticipation of their forthcoming record Accelerate, due in March. For each of the 90 days leading up to release, a short, enigmatic video is posted at ninetynights.com. Some, like #25 here, filmed during their "non-show" public rehearsals in Dublin this past July, have a very Dont Look Back cinema verite feel to them.
Web 2.0 gimmicks aside, the brief clips released on ninetynights.com are exciting. The band, who supposedly were barely communicating in the past few years, sounds truly invigorated. There is ample reason to believe that the Bill Berry-less R.E.M., who Michael Stipe once called a "three-legged dog," might not need to be put down just yet. In a refreshing departure from the mid-tempo Ambien Trilogy of Up, Reveal and Around the Sun, Accelerate features just ten songs and gets in and gets out in under 40 minutes. Could it be a Document for the end of the Bush years?
Best of all, if you need a ringtone of their first single "Supernatural Superserious," you don't even have to wait one night.
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