critic’s pick

words by Richard Clayton

accelerate
by r.e.m.

We wouldn’t normally recommend an album without hearing the final tracks, but we’re making an exception for R.E.M.’s latest, their 14th studio work. Clips on YouTube of their “live rehearsals”, held in Dublin last June, suggest Messrs Buck, Mills and Stipe are back up to speed on Accelerate after 2004’s dreary Around the Sun. Guitarist Peter Buck looked liberated on the hard-driving chime of “Horse to Water” and the choppy jangle of “Man-Sized Wreath”: no more playing second-fiddle to electronic loops! Bloggers reckon the band are again digging the sounds of mid-80s albums such as Document and Fables of the Reconstruction, which purists consider to be some their finest, and there’s still an automatic singalong ballad in “Until the Day is Done”. Has producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol) retained that exuberance on record though?

the big gig
the cure

The gestation of goth legend The Cure’s latest album has been as agonised as Robert Smith’s vocals can sound. Expected last autumn, it’s now due this spring, and is likely to be a double. After two members suddenly left last year, fans might have thought the band was disintegrating. But guitarist Porl Thompson has rejoined and Smith believes he’s given the group back its “rock edge”. This European tour will be the ideal chance to find out if that’s true. Songs from the new album, which is, apparently, “more in the style of [1987 album] Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, with different things happening instead of being a mood piece”, will be aired along with, no doubt, such classics as “Lovecats” and “Lullaby”.

Concert dates in Sterling destinations include Barcelona (10 March); Paris (12 March); Antwerp, fly to Brussels (14 March); Oberhausen, fly to Dortmund (16 March); Rotterdam, fly to Amsterdam (18 March) and London (20 March). www.thecure.com, tickets at www.euroteam.info

band to watch
foals

Galloping up on the outside rail of last year’s new-rave scene, Foals could be about to turn the competition into also-rans. Fifth in the BBC’s prestigious Sound of 2008 poll, the Oxford five-piece give math-rock and afrobeat influences a sharp pop spur. Their lead single, “Balloons”, is like Bloc Party in a jittery trance. Yet the guitar-scrambling “Mathlectics”, their signature track, isn’t even on debut album Antidote, which is due out on 24 March on Transgressive. Are these boys confident or what? www.wearefoals.com