In the spirit of Maxim magazine’s “educated guess” policy on record reviews, here’s our new Reverb column, The Maxim Review. Who said you needed to hear the album to write a good review? For a while there, it seemed like Stipe, Buck, and Mills (the remaining members of R.E.M.), weren’t so much performing as R.E.M. as they were humping the bloated corpse of a thing that used to be called R.E.M. Now, the three members return with Accelerate, hailed as their big comeback statement, the record that will prove to the disillusioned that they are still a force to be reckoned with. It’s called Accelerate. Accelerate…as in what happens to the heart rate of old men in nursing homes when a busty nurse slips her hand under the afghan. Accelerate…as in what happens when middle aged men in Bellevue buy Mazda convertibles to reclaim their youth, pull out of their heated driveways…and step on the gas pedal!!! Vrrroooom!