pitchfork.com : Album Review : R.E.M. Collapse Into Now
Bits and pieces from every great R.E.M. record are present on Collapse Into Now, but the ease with which the band once combined these elements is now tenuous and hard-fought. Some of Buck and Mills's best melodic ideas simply get drowned out or rushed through, and Stipe often trips over the idiosyncratic vocal phrasings he once commanded so well. A deadpanned "20th Century collapse into now" towards the album's end echoes the line "20th Century, go to sleep" from "Electrolite", the last song on the last truly great R.E.M. album. Fifteen years ago, however, Stipe followed that line with a self-effacing "... really deep." This generous and deeply human complexity was often R.E.M.'s saving grace, even as they pursued counterintuitive and seemingly pretentious directions. This album is host to more such complexity than anything since 1998's Up-- but Collapse Into Now still sounds like the work of a band caught between old habits and new adventures. — Matt LeMay, March 9, 2011
