REM
Live at the Olympia in Dublin 39 Songs, Warners

In the summer of 2007, REM held a series of "workshops" at Dublin's Olympia Theatre – a brave move by the band and a thrilling one for those for who got to any of the shows. REM were on something of a low after their disappointing 2004 album, Around the Sun. What these rehearsals showed is that they were more than eager to dispense with the sonic niceties and revert to a quicker-paced and altogether more vigorous sound.

The idea was to break in new material for the Acceleratealbum, and give producer Jacknife Lee an idea of where the songs were going. It's some testament to Acceleratethat the live songs here sound better than the studio ones – with Peter Buck, in particular, shining.

This two-disc set also doubles as a live album, and it's here that it really takes off. REM leave out the hits; there's no Losing My Religionor Everybody Hurts, and the only well-known track is a slightly spooky version of Drive. This is very much a true fan's set list as the band dip judiciously into the less well-aired parts of their back catalogue.

Gardening at Night, Feeling Gravity's Pulland a magnificent Harborcoatall take on a new shape and form as REM handle with care while reworking different nuances into the songs. It's enough to make you wonder if those occasional cul-de-sacs the band have gone down in recent years are all the fault of how the studio sucked the life out of the raw material. Tracks that never impressed that much on various albums are dynamic here.

Sometimes you need reminding of just how good a band actually are, and this release single- handedly expiates much of what REM have done on the last three or four albums. Forget the fact that this is Accelerate as a live work-in-progress and view this for what it really is: a great live album. www.remhq.com

Download tracks: Gardening at Night, Harborcoat