New Adventures in Hi-Fi

by

R.E.M.

Edit

For R.E.M, the group we grew up with, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," is really their coda. After "New Adventures," with the loss of drummer Bill Berry, the band morphed into something different. So this is the last chance we have to capture the R.E.M. of old, but be warned this just isn't a group comfortable with their lofty position of pop and rock icons and churning out the same old stuff (not that the same old stuff was anything to ignore). This is R.E.M at their experimental and expanding best. As they made their last album with Berry, they were still growing. Now they still make good music, but come across more as the Michael Stipe Group with, "Up" and "Reveal."

This album was made on the road during the "Monster" tour in which untold tragedies, infirmities and maladies befell the band. Instead of coming off like sound checks and a semi-live album though, it really does reach the listener as coming from the studio, sound-wise. But maybe there is an immediacy behind the songs, a one take, no overlays sound that belies its live origins. Whatever it is, this is one great, energetic, mysterious and beautiful record.

"Undertow" does for water what "Fall on Me" did for the sky. "Go down to the water, get down in the water, walk up off the water...I'm drowning." E-bow The Letter lets Stipe get to duet with one of R.E.M.'s big influences Patti Smith as she drones a mother in the background, "I'll take you over," Stipe answers, "aluminum it tastes like fear" and in the cold bite of aluminum on your teeth the fear analogy works deep and real.

One of R.E.M's best songs is on this album, but hardly noticed to the world at large, "Leave." This loopback wailing of a sonic guitar out of control kicks in after an acoustic lullaby. At first it seems to break the melancholy darkness of the song, but then subtly blends in leaving an other-worldness to the drone of drawn out chords. Stipe croons, "that's what keeps me down, to leave it all behind," as Mills intones beautiful harmony in the background in all the right places (something he has given up on these days with Reveal). The song is beautiful and intense, one of the Athens Five's best.

"Binky the Doormat," though quite strange lyrically is classic R.E.M. Even more classic and hearkening back to the days of "Life's Rich Pageant," is "So Fast, So Numb." It's a rave-up with Stipe's voice cutting a darkened growl, "this is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see."

And "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" I think is exactly what the band wanted to put out, not trying to guess what the public wanted to hear or what would sell. At this point they already reached the public and sold tons of records..."New Adventures" allowed them to make the music that felt right at the time. And what music it is, my second all time R.E.M favorite behind "Life's Rich Pageant," an overlooked gem, a diamond in the rough.