Thanks to my obsession with R.E.M., Accelerate‘s tidy running time of around 40 minutes and the fact I heard it for free a week before its official release on iLike, I have listened to the new album more than a few times. Here are a few completely and utterly biased thoughts.

• As a big fan of loud and raucous R.E.M.,  I love the album. They don’t hide their instruments this time around. I don’t care if the songs are simplistic at times, they are fast and fun. That’s what I want from rock and roll.
• Reviews have often centered on how the songs hearken back to older albums, and I agree. Sometimes I feel like I’m listening to Green, sometimes New Adventures and sometimes Automatic. I don’t ever feel taken back to Pageant like one reviewer did, but I keep that album at a very high level so that would be hard to reach.
• There is nothing wrong with re-writing End of the World over and over again, especially since that was a re-write of PSA which was eventually re-tooled again as Bad Day. I actually like the fact that I feel like singing the words to Bad Day as the chorus of Living Well starts.
• I hope Michael Stipe never tells us the meaning behind Supernatural Superserious because I am enjoying my interpretation that it is about his shyness as a youth and how he learned to come out of his shell thanks to his performances on stage.
• The little bass run before the final chorus in Hollow Man make you remember how amazing Mike Mills really is.
• I love the small touches like the laughs at the end of Sing for the Submarine and the quick transition between songs by producer Jacknife Lee. I also like the notion of a producer named Jacknife.
• The album blows away anything they have done for ages, but I still miss Bill Berry.
• I am a total sucker and bought the special edition with DVD film and two B-sides, neither of which I have heard yet.