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REM - Reveal
REM is one of those rare rock bands that refuse to let the charts, the audience, or the studio dictate what they do. They are following something mysterious wherever it takes them, however it sells. You can sum up their achievements in terms of "hits" if you want. Songs don’t get much more maddeningly memorable than "Stand" or "Shiny Happy People". Or you can focus on the majority of their work, unconventional alt-pop and heavy rock that teases the listener with cryptic, riddling lyrics. They've been political, satirical, spiritual, and hysterical. Lead singer Michael Stipe usually strikes a variety of poses on a record: clown, guru, surrealist, rock star, confessor. But on REM's new album Reveal, he is holds a single pose for the duration. He’s a poet, following a muse, trascribing visions of youth and sunshine even as he trudges through the rain of trials and blues. We walk alongside a sad dreamer on perhaps the most intense journey an REM record has ever provided. Musically, the album suggests REM is not merely enduring, but enjoying its divorce from big rock-and-roll drums. There’s not a single rocker on the record, but you won’t notice; the songs are energetic and interesting in their highly stacked layers of sound. The electronic effects provide itchy rhythms and almost subliminal heartbeats, while much of what sounds like searing and strange electronica is actually Peter Buck performing more marvels with the feedback of his guitar. Once in a while a traditional arena-rock guitar solo breaks through, and when it does it’s almost disorienting; we are forced to realize that this is not Michael Stipe boxed up in Brian Eno’s studio somewhere…this is a band producing an ocean of original sound. The influence of the Beach Boys is obvious here, but I’d also suggest that Stipe is following in the footsteps of David Bowie, learning how decorous, restless electronic tracks can highlight his unique crooning and slower phrasing. As he matures, he's quieting down and finding some wonderful textures to his haunting and unique voice.On "The Lifting", he speaks of a time when "you" (which might be himself, might be the listener) "had a dream/of oceans, and sunken cities; memories of things you've never known." Faith, the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, seems stifled by the heavy rational world everywhere one turns. "Grounded / 5AM / the nightlight is comforting / but gravity is holding you…." Gravity, one of Stipe’s most recurring lyrical elements, is still the difficult reality, but now the focus is on how to deal with it rather than on its bitter consequences. Playing the role of tour guide and, yes, therapist, he says "allow the noise to recede", encouraging the listener to a quieter, still place of contemplation. The song is a clarion call to the dreamer in everyone, to the power of faith that elevates someone out of the painful confinement of logical systems. This leads right into "I’ve Been High"…a confession that he too has tasted of a better reality, a higher existence, that this current heavy life veils. In its minimalism, the stark resonant contrasts of its bell-clang guitar notes and its undulating ocean of electronica and loops, we have the impression of a solitary singer suspended between a world that might drown him and the summons of a heavenly bell. Perhaps he’s banging against the ceiling as though it is a closed door, demanding entrance. There’s a melancholy feel to the whole affair, a deep sadness as though he may have missed his chance at something better. "Have I missed the big reveal?" he asks. Sometimes, though, one can go too high, as does the hero of "All the Way to Reno". "Reno" is the closest thing to a pop single on the album; it's certainly the most fun to sing with an unforgettable refrain. Pop singers kill for melodies as contagious as this. Kudos to the band for not loading it with conventional drums and solos. Peter Buck breaks out the 12-string, layered with other guitars for what is the most traditional REM track on the record. It’s the story of a dreamer that goes too far.And thus we now have the three pieces necessary to see the album’s primary story arc…. This is the story of Icarus, who longed to fly, flew, went too close to the sun, and fell. There is a lot of sunlight in this music, and a lot of rain as well. Clearly, the sun is the dream, the rain is the disappointment of the everyday. Stipe’s songs have never been so interwoven, so insistent on both its questions and its assurances. It doesn’t just ask "Is there more?" It says "I have tasted more, I have seen the promised land, and living here sure isn’t any easier because of it." The rest of the album fleshes out these longings, disappointments, and ephiphanies. "She Just Wants to Be" illustrates a girl struggling with wanderlust. "Now is greater than the whole of the past," Stipe insists, defending her desire to leave habit and tradition behind. "Saturn Return" (in my opinion among REM’s finest moments) chronicles a period of questioning and self-discovery, when the Self (Saturn) breaks from gravity, finds a new path, rearranges its moons, and starts again. Sometimes Stipe’s apprehension of the world’s natural created beauty borders on divine revelation; as he searches for academic truths in "Beat a Drum", he finds instead that "The dragonflies are trying to lecture me/The seahorses if we were in the sea." Creation is full of evidence that there is some grand design, something meaningful. "Summer Turns to High" is a gorgeous flashback, a walk though innocence lost. "Imitation of Life", the first radio single, is the album's only misstep, flawed only in that it recycles past REM guitar riffs to build a stronger song. The sentiment is familiar as well, following "Crush with Eyeliner", suggesting that we settle for artificial dreams to cover the ache of unfulfilled, real dreams. Here again, Hollywood becomes the symbol of our dreams made manifest, and at the same time it is a giant mask, a gaudy cover-up for needs that we cannot meet on our own. "Come on, come on," he wryly persuades us, "No one can see you cry." Reveal is REM’s most beautiful album, in this writer’s opinion after more than a dozen listens. It’s a more cohesive than their two previous masterpieces Out of Time and Automatic for the People. Sure, you miss the old energetic rock’n’roll REM. But for me the thrill of watching this band for more than a decade has been to see them contantly changing into startling new manifestations. They've become more complicated, more honest, more confident. Where once they were murky and cryptic, now they're writing pop poetry with much to reveal.
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