Gnarls Barkley combines the talents of rapper/singer Cee-Lo and producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse. A true collaboration, the duo proceeds by Danger Mouse sending numerous musical passages to Cee-Lo, who then selects which ones he wants to work with for his vocal efforts. The duo came almost completely out of the blue last year to dominate year-end "best of" lists with their multi-format hit, "Crazy," which propelled their album St. Elsewhere into the sales leagues of Beyonce and Dave Matthews. "Crazy," however, was only the tip of the iceberg on that album, which ranged far and wide, from straight-forward hip-hop to balladeering to instrumental breaks to a totally unexpected cover of the Violent Femmes "Gone Baby Gone". For a project that was not planned as the basis of a career, now comes time for the follow-up. Again taking their album title from a TV show (perhaps they can call their third opus The Mod Squad), The Odd Couple is almost by necessity a less varied album than St. Elsewhere. While there are those who lauded the variety of their first album as its best feature, The Odd Couple holds its own by being filled with uniformly excellent songs, fantastic production, and Cee-Lo's most heartfelt vocals and lyrics to date. Further, the album has a unique and consistent tenor running throughout its selections, a feeling of haunted dread and misfortune that the singer is constantly fighting to overcome. The kicker is that this feeling is both encapsulated and transcended through the upbeat sixties beats and grooves that are laced into the album by Danger Mouse. "Charity Case" kicks off the album with a groovy sixties rhythm, almost like a TV commercial from the day, that then provides the backing for Cee-Lo's uneasy meditations and vocoded vocals. "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" follows by establishing the film-noir feel that runs through nearly the entire album, with nice strummed acoustic guitars underpinning Cee-Lo crooning "Who's gonna save my soul now/Who's gonna tell my story now/I wonder if I'll live to grow old now/Getting' high cause I feel so low down". Similarly, "Open Book" finds a cut-up beat and disturbing synth line forming the backdrop for Cee-Lo screaming "Mama---Save me!" repeatedly. While all this may give the impression that The Odd Couple is a downer of a listen, there are songs like "Whatever" which has an almost nursery rhyme like melody, with Cee-Lo resignedly stating "It's cool/It could be better/I don't care/Whatever". And then there is the tour-de-force of "Surprise" which starts with a sixties-ish mélange reminiscent of the 5th Dimension (or even the straight-arrow vocal group Up With People) that then morphs into a wonderful bossa nova with jagged guitar stabs and prominent claves providing the drive. In sum, with The Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley has placed the variety they crave within each song rather than between them. This makes this follow-up easily the equal of its predecessor.

The title gives the game away with this, REM's umpteenth album from a career spanning 30+ years. While the last few REM albums have been stately, slow-paced, or, to be more critical, almost dirge-like, the trio of Stipe, Buck, and Mills have had their energy drinks and put out their most-up-tempo album since Monster back in 1994. Unfortunately, like that album, while Accelerate has a number of good songs and great riffs, there is really nothing new or particularly exciting about what has been placed between the grooves (or within the 10101010's, as the case may be). " Living Well Is The Best Revenge" kicks things off with a sprightly, trebly and hard-edged guitar line from Buck, with Stipe spitting and screaming out his words over the lightning quick bass runs of Mills. "Supernatural Superserious" cops the riff from "Sweet Jane" to unique effect and includes a great middle-eight. "Houston" sounds like it could have easily found a place on Automatic For The People, high praise given the excellence of that album. Overall, though, the group's latest effort has the feel of a band that know its' craft well and is honing it for the hundredth time, albeit with renewed energy and a determination to rock. Accelerate is certainly REM's best album in a decade, but it has miles to go before it can be placed alongside the likes of Document, Murmur, Out Of Time, or the aforementioned Automatic For The People.