New Adventures in Hi-Fi - R.E.M. (CD 1996)

In 1994 R.E.M. made a bold decision to change their style in an effort to keep pace with the popular "alternative" acts of the day. The album, aptly named Monster, saw the band produce heavy numbers such as Bang and Blame and Star 69, songs that rocked harder than just about anything previously in their catalog. Monster was met with criticism, but it also had enough acclaim to help them remain one of rock's major players.

By 1996, the band was almost ready to return to their usual style, but the alternative experiment was not over yet. New Adventures in Hi-Fi gave the rock world a healthy and diverse mix of the R.E.M. we knew best and the R.E.M. that had us blasting our radios only two years earlier.

They made it clear that they were still rockin' with Wake Up Bomb, a fast and angry piece with odd but interesting lyrics. This is a great tune to crank up, but apparently it was hard to make a hit out of. Luckily, they released Bittersweet Me, the most solid rock tune on the album. From the soft opening riff to Michael Stipe's belting out of the chorus - " couldn't taste it/ I'm tired and naked/ I don't know what I'm hungry for/ I don't know what I want anymore" - Bittersweet Me is as good as many of the band's best.

Other good rockers include the static-y Undertow, and the excellent, guitar-driven Departure. I also really enjoy Leave's soft intro, which leads into a good song with a siren-like guitar part. That sound could have gotten annoying quickly, but they placed it nicely in the background so that it's just loud enough to provide contrast to the rest of the song.

As usual, however, R.E.M. proves that most of its best moments come with more mellow tunes. Despite some bad piano playing, the dark How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us starts the album out with a hauntingly good feeling before Wake Up Bomb bursts out. Be Mine has some different but great romantic lyrics: "I never thought of this as funny/ It speaks another world to me/ I want to be your Easter bunny/ I want to be your Christmas tree." The first single, E-Bow the Letter is a powerful piece with very nice background vocals providing a darker ambience. The song reminds me of Pearl Jam's Nothing As It Seems.

Some other tracks are not bad but not as good as the others and pretty much forgettable. Things start waning toward the end, but that's all forgotten as Electrolite takes us out with nice piano playing accompanying beautiful singing from Stipe. This is one of the strongest tracks on an overall strong album.

Not a lot of people liked this album, so the band then went back to making mellower music, resulting in the excellent Up and the good but boring Reveal. I admit New Adventures takes a while to grow on you, but it's worth a chance. It's different than most R.E.M. but still as good as lot of their work. In fact, I certainly wouldn't mind if they decided to really rock out like this again just to wake us up to the fact that they can if they want.


Also from R.E.M.:

Out of Time
Automatic For the People
Monster
Up
Reveal
Accelerate