This is the story of one of rock’s major bands that has no desire to rest on anything. Neither on its laurels, nor on its pillow. At a time when others are easing off, REM is stepping on the accelerator and releasing the most nervous album of its career, or almost. The eleven songs that make up this fourteenth release from the Athens, Georgia band are more tense, compact, and urgent than ever. Driven by a fire that must surely have something sacred about it, Michael Stipe and his two partners do indeed speed up the tempo, distort the guitar sound and set the basses racing. Apart from Until The Day Is Done, an arpeggiated ballad as the trio likes them, perhaps in memory of hours spent listening to the Byrds, Hollow Man and its built-in pauses, or the dark Houston bristling with minor chords, the rest of this album produced by Jacknife Lee burns rubber (Living Well's The Best Revenge, Mansized Wreath, Horse To Water) and shakes up the clocks by reviving new wave (Supernatural Superserious, I'm Gonna DJ). Admittedly, Mr Richards or Sing For The Submarine will burn fewer calories, but the intention is very much the same in this grand display of tangled harmonies and menacing arrangements. If the title hadn’t already been used, this new REM could very well be called Monster.