1) The Lifting; 2) I’ve Been High; 3) All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star); 4) She Just Wants to Be; 5) Disappear; 6) Saturn Return; 7) Beat a Drum; 8) Imitation of Life; 9) Summer Turns to High; 10) Chorus and the Ring; 11) I’ll Take the Rain; 12) Beachball
Up's electronica elements mixed with the lush orchestral production of the early 90s records, which when combined turn into a quintessential summer record.
Key tracks: "I've Been High", "Beat a Drum", "Imitation of Life"
After Up’s deeply personal, soul-cleansing exercise, Reveal carries an aura of reconnection with the greater world. As incredible as Up was, the primary impression it leaves is its very insular sound and mood, where you have to dig a little deeper to find the still strongly beating heart of R.E.M.’s songwriting. Reveal, then, presents as much of an 180 turn as Up did. The traditional band roles in more prominent display again again (including an increased presence of session drummers), even if there’s still a lingering element of R.E.M. taking cautious steps forward as a three-person incarnation in tune with Up’s soundscapes, with programmed drums, frequent synthesizers and emphasised keyboard parts making up much of the album. But as albums, they’re night and day - where Up was the melancholy late hours spent awake lost in thought; Reveal is the brand new morning. It’s a decidedly more upbeat album, full of harmonies rather than controlled chaos. There’s a clear desire for the band to smile again, resulting in a shift in gears to a more traditionally R.E.M.-esque album. Even the opening song welcomes you in: “Good morning! How are you? The weather’s fine, the sky is blue…”
“The Lifting”, the said opener, is a grand start and continues with the band’s tradition of strong openers, and is in fact one of the best in that regard. It’s light as a breeze, bouncing on every step like a liberated free spirit, throwing an infectious hook after another as Buck’s familiar jangle appears and the drums carry an infectious rhythm. Stipe has entertained the thought that the song is about the same overworked soul as Up’s “Daysleeper”, and thus it’s another semi-intentional shedding of the previous album’s weariness, bringing the melancholy narrator to the open sunlight. It’s an overwhelmingly joyous song above all, but doesn’t aggressively try to be one, like e.g. the decidedly hyper-upbeat “Stand” or “Shiny Happy People”. There’s genuinity to it and its spiralling conclusion, with Stipe yelping full of energy, is a moment of honest delight - and in that sense, it leads the way perfectly. Reveal is open and inviting, in tone and in music - positive, melodically rich and full of hooks. After Up’s experimentation Reveal places simple songcraft back in the spotlight, and while there’s still great importance placed on the production of the material, the songs presented here are first and foremost guided by their melodies.
Much of what makes Reveal jump alive is still how the band treat the studio as an integral instrument in its own right, and the ambience that’s pushed through the ideas making up the album’s world of sound. There’s a level of obsession in details prevalent throughout, carefully layered sounds and minor parts forming into a greater whole as R.E.M. seek a particular feeling throughout. Reveal is a pastoral album, a record aimed for summer through and through - the cover, the May release date, the constant lyrical references to the season and especially overt touches like sampling crickets make it abundantly clear, and the sound itself is appropriately lush, warm and inviting. The production is pristine enough to let all these details come through clearly, but there’s not a trace of studio sterility. The instrumentation emphasises bright keyboards, clean guitar parts and gentle touches of electronic programming, with Up’s dissonance brushed away as far back as possible. Even in its more introspective moments the band reach out their hand rather than wallow away.
The production’s other main role is tying together Reveal’s different strands. R.E.M. are in transition here, with one foot in the electronic soundscapes they’ve played around with for the previous couple of years, while the other foot is kicking back for a full band feel. Thus Reveal is, despite its unifying atmosphere, a diverse album. The traditional R.E.M. band sound makes a comeback frequently, but with a twist in how it goes about its arrangements, though there is a precedent. Before Reveal, the band released the (fantastic) soundtrack single “The Great Beyond”, re-introducing R.E.M. as a full-band rock act but one with an expanded sonic palette built upon Up’s studio wizardry and the willingness to tap into new soundscapes through precise arrangements, and it’s like the blueprint that Reveal’s foundations are based on. Thus for example the guitar-driven “Disappear” and “She Just Wants to Be” sound like natural extensions of where the band were in the 90s, but there’s a kind of grace and aural richness that sounds new. It’s at times akin to a 21st century update on studio magic of 60s classic pop psychedelia years.
The keyboard/synth-oriented songs on the other hand are dreamy, serene moments of still among the lively full band cuts. “I’ve Been High” is arguably the most extreme of the lot, as there’s nary a trace of live instrument in its pseudo-synth pop sound. It’s a colossally beautiful, haunting deep cut however, full of graceful melancholy and soothing dreaminess breaking through the sad haze - and its last minute, from its career standout bridge to the rise it takes in its finale and Stipe’s evocative lyric lines, is absolutely incredible. “Beat a Drum”, “Summer Turns to High” and “Beachball” on the other hand are prime examples of what I mean when I talk about Reveal as a summer album, evoking the spirit of the season and the lazy holidays with their warm sound. The latter two directly make the comparisons, the electro-acoustic “Summer Turns to High” obviously so while the mellow float of “Beachball” somehow manages to take the feeling of watching the sun go down at the end of a perfect summer’s day and turn it into music, gently bobbing along with its minimalistic beat. “Beat a Drum” is a little masterpiece as well, with Mills taking control through his softly swaying bass riff, the gentle piano leading the song and enriching the chorus through his backing vocals. The chorus, incidentally, is another one that manages to evoke so much so effectively through what is in the end a very few lines and a fairly straightforward progression; and yet, it’s one of the album’s most magical moments, a true blooming of warm summer air in music.
The one song most driven by the production, “Saturn Return”, is a little marvel on its own: all tightly-wound atmosphere with little elements bouncing back and forth between the headphones, constantly switching its lead instrument from Buck’s feedback-heavy guitar line to Mills’ delicate piano, floating on top of a persistent drum machine up until the near end when the live drums kick in for a moment. It’s the most Up-esque moment on Reveal, a bridge between the two that reminds the band haven’t completed moved away from it. It’s quietly one of Reveal’s key tracks: an unassuming oddity at first, eventually revealing itself to be an integral centrepiece and a curious shadow cast over the album’s summer day.
The one remaining song, “Chorus and the Ring”, is a strange one, not really going anywhere yet towards its end it reaches a certain kind of crescendo of its own ilk where you find yourself strangely captured by the song. It’s an odd one out on an album that otherwise has a very direct touch with its songwriting (“Saturn Return” included), and perhaps the only slightly dimmer spot in what is otherwise one of R.E.M.’s very finest records. That’s not a light statement, but it feels almost borderline obvious, because Reveal seems to have it all. Stipe is in brilliant lyrical form, with so many great lines that lead your imagination flying, the production is golden and everyone involved with the actual playing of the music are delivering a sharp performance. And as an album, Reveal is certainly one of their most melodic: it embraces a type of songwriting which leans on harmony and goes for hooks within hooks, almost overwhelmingly so. That’s always been a strength for R.E.M. and Reveal revolves around it, making it the core theme for the album together with the lushness and the summer vibe. If you can think of a picturesque sunset on a peaceful summer’s evening following a pleasantly hot day, and experiencing that comforting feeling of everything being perfect and carefree in life like the best summer vacation you’ve had - that’s where Reveal wants to take you.
And it does. “Beachball” closes the album with Stipe repeating “you’ll do fine” as the sun goes down in the horizon, and you can tell that after all the sadness and uncertainty, there was hope again in the band’s ranks.
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