For the next few days you can hear an online preview of the new R.E.M. album at iLike. They’ve been my favorite band for a very long time, and yet it’s been hard to say that lately. But this new stuff is good! They emerged at the end of the experimentation tunnel with a few new tricks, but they’ve married it to their old sound, and the synergy is quality. Plus, it sounds like recent politics have Michael Stipe pissed off enough to be writing sharper lyrics. ScreenwriterGuy will be listening to this continuously from now till Thursday.