R.E.M. is at work in a Portland, Ore. studio on the follow-up to its 2008 comeback album, 'Accelerate.' Word of the studio activity came cryptically this week when guitarist Peter Buck posted this photo of singer Michael Stipe standing in the company of producer Jacknife Lee, producer/engineer Tom McFall and sound engineer Sam Bell.

If Buck's photo wasn't enough of a hint, R.E.M.'s website points to a recent Online Athens interview with Lee, in which the producer confirms he's been in the studio with the band working on a new disc. In the article, Lee suggests that the project will have a similar live-in-the-studio process like 'Accelerate.'

Speaking of the praise hurled at that album, Lee suggests it wasn't a matter of the band reaching back to the edginess of its youth, as some critics suggested. "It was five people in a room playing -- not looking back, that wasn't the intent," says the producer. "It was counting to four and playing a song. And in that, there's a fierceness ... They're a great band."

While there's no official statement from the band about what the disc will be called or when it might actually surface, the news does offer encouragement to fans who were stoked by both 'Accelerate' and the group's acclaimed new release, 'Live at the Olympia,' which features 39 songs from the group's 2007 five-night stint in Dublin.