R.E.M.

An admirably weird record, supposedly assembled from pieces written and recorded during sound checks on the Monster tour. Don't expect consistency or an over-arching vision, but with fourteen tracks dipping their toes into every pool the band's ever gone swimming in, from indie jangle to major-label muscle rock, there're bound to be one or two songs you love.

They say it's always darkest before the dawn. For R.E.M., these have been dark days
indeed. In 1992 the Athens, Ga., band released Automatic for the People, on which the
singer and lyricist Michael Stipe reflected upon life's rich ephemerality. Two years later,
Stipe's friend Kurt Cobain killed himself. R.E.M. responded on 1994's Monster by rocking
like teenage music geeks in a suburban garage. But a bizarre series of medical e... More >

Two years of road adventures, such as they were, that fuse spontaneity and arena scale. At sound checks and ad hoc local studios, Michael Stipe preaches and exhorts more than he rambles or muses, Mike Mills spelunks with keybs, and Peter Buck pumps the folk-rock jangle that broadened Amerindie's first wave. Nothing epochal, and there's poetry in that--the poetry of a nominal community that has learned how to keep its dreams modest and enjoy them that way. But for all the reliable melodies, momenta, and FX--love the siren on "Leave," guys--there's also routine in it. (Grade - A-)