"I'm incomplete," repeats Michael Stipe on the title track of the iconic alternative-rock group's latest album, Accelerate. Like many of Stipe's lyrics throughout R.E.M.'s 28-year career, the meaning is ambiguous -- both a promise and a curse. After 2004's sleepy Around the Sun took months to produce in the studio only to flop commercially and critically, the band reportedly recorded Accelerate in nine weeks. The result: R.E.M. is rocking again in a way it really hasn't since drummer Bill Berry left due to a brain aneurysm in 1997. Produced with U2 associate Jacknife Lee, Accelerate cranks the guitars and picks up the pace right from the opener, the politely raucous "Living Well Is the Best Revenge." First single "Supernatural Superserious" complements Peter Buck's distorted downstrokes with Mike Mills's distinctive backing vocals and R.E.M.'s classic jangle. Still, everything feels glossy and forgettable. Even though longtime fans may welcome a return to the aggression of late-1980s mainstream breakthroughs Life's Rich Pageant and Document, the similarities here are often just superficial. Many of the songs sound incomplete as well, lacking the ear-catching melodies that salvaged the band's hardest rocking album, 1994's Monster. "What comes around goes around," Stipe shouts on the breathless "Horse to Water." But no matter how loud and fast Accelerate gets, it never sounds particularly rebellious. The title track and "Until the Day Is Done" have only the vaguest political complaints. Not until the B-52s-like finale, "I'm Gonna DJ," does the band finally loosen up a bit, feeling fine again about "the end of the world." R.E.M.'s career doesn't sound complete yet, but the world may have moved on without it.

-- Marc Hogan