Emerging from the REM binge today, we’ve had a go at the excellent debut album from Fuck Buttons, which I’ll write something about soon. And also, from a quixotic stream on a distant computer, I caught some of the Portishead record. Sounded good, I’m pleased to say, from what I heard. As I think I saw mentioned after the ATP show, there’s at least one track which seems massively influenced by the Silver Apples, and one or two more which – almost certainly a coincidence – wouldn’t sound out of place on Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”; something about the drums, perhaps. Hopefully we’ll get the stream working, and I’ll listen to it properly next week and report back. Right now, though, I’m indulging myself by dipping into the latest batch of Triffids reissues which have just arrived from Domino. After their deluxe jobs on “Born Sandy Devotional”, “Calenture” and “In The Pines”, this lot features “Treeless Plain”, a comp of “Raining Pleasure” and some other early stuff called “Beautiful Waste And Other Songs”, and the band’s last record from 1989, “The Black Swan”. As I write, I’m playing the second disc of the "Black Swan" reissue which, as is the way of these things, seems to mainly consist of demo versions. I guess if you know The Triffids you’ll probably, like me, fixate on those great blasted songs of the Australian desert that filled up “Born Sandy Devotional”. But beyond all that outback mythologizing, The Triffids were also a maverick, romantic and ambitious band whose great glowering ballads – “Hometown Farewell Kiss”, “Wide Open Road”, “This Property Is Condemned” and so on – stand comparison with (and this isn’t just a lazy choice predicated by geography, I promise) Nick Cave. “The Black Swan” is, in many ways, a bit of a mess, as David McComb struggled to expand the remit of his band with some vague hip-hop beats, electronic textures that sound pretty dated now and various theatrical conceits which contributed to a sprawling, incoherent album – albeit one which I loved when I was doing my finals, irrelevantly enough. Domino’s new version is, amusingly, even more sprawling and incoherent, since it adds half a dozen more songs to the original, reconstructing McComb’s unfulfilled dream of a double album. A shocking version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” is the one glaring addition. But a bunch of the songs, especially the sticky, torpid, “Too Hot To Move, Too Hot To Think” and the incredibly stirring “New Year’s Greetings”, sound as good as ever. Those two sound good on this demos disc, too; “Too Hot To Move” is, amazingly, even more wasted and sluggish. Interesting, too, for old fanboys to hear Jill Birt’s “Goodbye Little Boy” in an alternative version fronted by McComb called “Why Don’t You Leave For Good This Time?” At times, on “One Mechanic Town”, there’s that echoing menace that they found on “In The Pines”, recording in a sheep-shearing shed in the precise middle of nowhere. That’s where I like to imagine The Triffids, patronisingly enough, not in a swish studio. But whatever: at worst this is nostalgic or diverting; at best, it still sounds sublime.

Thanks for all your comments on the REM blog I posted yesterday. I thought it might be useful if I tried to answer a few of your questions – as best as I can, anyway. Comment from: Paul What did you think of “Sing For The Submarine”? Is it that it's a bad song or just that it drags on for too long? It’s OK, Paul, though maybe the second weakest song on the album after “I’m Gonna DJ”. It’d certainly benefit from the sort of ruthless editing that’s been applied to most of the other tunes. But it’s also one of those slightly overblown, slowish tunes which have been so common on the previous two albums. Comment from: Nigel W What were your three good songs on “Around The Sun”, by the way? “Leaving New York” and “Boy In The Well” were the two I singled out for praise at the time. Yeah, those two are good songs, and I also liked “High Speed Train”: it reminds me of some of the more interesting diversions on “Up”- which Daniel rightly praises in a comment at the end of this blog, incidentally. Comment from: Adrian Hi John, What is “Hollow Man” like? A bit of a tease, actually, since it starts like one of those sombre piano songs so beloved of latterday REM, then abruptly kicks off into something faster and guitar-heavy. Comment from: Kirsten Davis Would you say there is a chance it could go down with some of REM's best work? Well, it’s a good record and, as I said, the best since “New Adventures”. I can’t imagine that I’m going to reach for this instead of, say, “Murmur”, in a couple of years’ time. But as I’m sure many of you’ll agree, REM’s very best work is of such a daunting standard that it’s unrealistic to think even a relative return to form could measure up. Comment from: DemonAndrew “’Accelerate’, in fact, sounds like the record REM’s fans wanted them to make, not necessarily the record REM may have wanted to make.” That reminds me of what I think of U2's albums since "Pop", both of which are dire. Big hopes that REM aren't falling into the same trap.” Good point, DemonAndrew, and it definitely feels like REM are trying very hard – and once or twice, like when Stipe starts namedropping old song titles in “Sing To The Submarine”, way too hard – to please the fans. But I actually think “Around The Sun” was that record, since they obviously wanted to tap into the gravitas of “Automatic For The People” on that one. Those U2 albums are consciously in thrall to the most commercially successful records of their career. REM here sound much more interested in recapturing the feel of “These Days” rather than “Everybody Hurts”. Comment from: Another Inevitable Question John: I loved "Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance" from the Dublin gigs. Unfortunately, it looks like it was excluded based upon the tracklisting. Is there any chance that song was reincarnated as either "Hollow Man" or "Sing for the Submarine?" I’ve just had a look at “Staring Down The Barrel” on Youtube, and it doesn’t sound anything like those two. No idea what's happened to that one, I'm afraid.

OK, then, I must admit I’ve been sceptical about this one, so disillusioned by “Around The Sun” (three good, if woefully overproduced, songs notwithstanding) that I didn’t even bother to check out any bootlegs of those “live rehearsal” gigs from Dublin last year. . . More fool me, it transpires. If “Around The Sun” was a glossy attempt to update the moods of “Automatic For The People”, “Accelerate” looks further back into REM’s terrific back catalogue for inspiration. The mixture of crunch and jangle from Peter Buck, the generally speedier pace, Michael Stipe stuffing far too many words into each line while Mike Mills gamely tries to keep up with his harmonies, the attractive gothic woodiness of the folk ballads – all this reminds me a lot of how the band sounded circa “Lifes Rich Pageant” and “Document”. It’d be mighty rash to suggest “Accelerate” was the equal of those albums, but it certainly draws on their energies. This is not a perfect record, by any stretch, but it is one that improves with every listen, and which this morning sounds pretty much like the best REM effort since “New Adventures In Hi-Fi” (and I like “Up” and “Reveal” more than most critics, I suspect). The opener, “Living Well’s The Best Revenge” is, I think, the most straightforwardly exciting song they’ve recorded since “So Fast, So Numb”, a breathless hurtle which seems designed to prove they’re still capable of this dynamic, heady, heavily-textured kind of rock. It’s a point which’ll be made ad nauseam in reviews of “Accelerate”, but Buck’s return to electric prominence is both striking and massively welcome. I remember interviews with Stipe and Mills circa “Around The Sun” talked of how Buck busied himself in the studio stocking up their iPods. This time, mercifully, he seems to have contributed a lot more – or contributed a lot more of the sound which REM’s fans generally want from him – to the record. “Accelerate”, in fact, sounds like the record REM’s fans wanted them to make, not necessarily the record REM may have wanted to make. It’s a small complaint, I guess, when professional pragmatism sounds as good as this. I don’t want to write too much on the specific tracks, not least because I’ve got a very long review to file for the mag in the next few days. But it’s just under 35 minutes long, and only one of the 11 tracks (“Sing For The Submarine”) outlasts its welcome. “I’m Gonna DJ” you’ll probably know from recent tours and last year’s live album; it’s the worst song here, I think. Besides “Living Well’s The Best Revenge”, I’m currently taken with “Mansized Wreath” (improbably funky work from Mills), the fuzzed-out raga of “Mr Richards” (shades of “Time After Time” maybe) and another breakneck thriller called “Horse To Water”. If anyone saw the Dublin shows or has listened to the bootlegs, let me know what you think. Judging by "Accelerate", I really should have believed the hype.