CMX - Discopolis (1996)

1) Discoinferno; 2) Antroposentrifugi; 3) Nimetön; 4) Aamutähti; 5) Jerusalem; 6) Vallat ja väet; 7) Paha; 8) Suljettu astia; 9) Epäonnisten liikemiesten helvetti; 10) Arcana; 11) Silmien ummistamisesta Nansenin galvanointiin

Enter the industrial disco inferno. Twists, turns and loops.

Key tracks: "Antroposentrifugi", "Aamutähti", "Vallat ja väet"

Where to start? If you are following CMX's journey chronologically then Discopolis is the first truly befuddling curveball they throw at you; and if you're just going through the back catalogue in a random order, it's still going to be a strange trip no matter when you stumble onto it. Let down by the self-production experiment of Rautakantele where they had the songs ready before they hit the studio, together with an ol' faithful friend Gabi Hakanen the band took the total opposite route for the follow-up. Instead of having already written the material the band started recording sketches, demos and ideas in the studio and then began to construct the actual songs by cutting and clipping sections together, utilising the latest studio technology (this is apparently Finland's first ever ProTools-recorded album?) to form a piecemeal record. And that still doesn't explain how the songs turned out the way they did, as the band took the highly technological approach as inspiration to head towards an industrial techno-hell soundscape where heavy metal riffs would mingle with remix-ready drum loops: where you can't tell where the irony ends and earnest experimentation begins in-between the mosh pit numbers, the heartfelt moments where the facade is stripped off and whatever side the sardonic smoky jazz club number "Paha" is meant to represent.

Discopolis gets a weird rep because it is a weird album, both on the obvious surface level and - once you get to know it a bit better - perhaps moreso a little deeper under the surface as well. It finds CMX at crossroads: after two incredibly successful albums with big ballad hits and a more nuanced (some might say audience-friendly) sound CMX were bigger than ever, but the internal schism with drummer Pekka Kanniainen's disillusionment with the band and the music industry had began to affect the group's internal chemistry and the band's future was looking blurry. Throwing themselves into this studio experiment that was so different to their former recording ethos feels like a carpe diem moment to try and stoke a new fire going - and the loop-heavy approach probably helped with the issues with Kanniainen too. It's an album of thrown-in ideas where nothing was too peculiar to be shelved outright if it had the possibility of finding a place in one production cut/paste job or another - and a lot of those ideas still stem from the same band who had been evolving their songcraft and were keen to move forward in that respect. The weird industrial dancefloor metal moments and their adlibbed Scatman-riffing ("Nimetön", and maybe the "di-di-di-di-diii-ii-ii-ii-iisco" in "Discoinferno" could count as an eurodance hook too) and the bonkers euroclub-goes-metal homages ("Antroposentrifugi", without a doubt one of the wildest songs CMX have ever released and so ecstatic in its insanity) share spaces with earnest moments of songwriting which clearly stem from the preceding two records. "Aamutähti" is a gentle lullaby decorated with beautiful horn sections and light-as-air backing vocals with only the drum loop giving it that overt Discopolis vibe, "Suljettu astia" is such a normal rock song that it feels awkwardly out of place here, and "Vallat ja väet" rises from the ashes of its noise breakdowns into a heartfelt and longing giant that has the honest strength of a band acknowledging they've made it big time and they're going to ensure it damn well means something, by precision-firing an anthem so sharp and striking it instantly becomes a landmark song for them. They're reminiscent of the peaks of the past two albums - and in terms of "Vallat ja väet" and "Aamutähti" specifically they surpass many of them - but in the vortex of Discopolis they're almost too serious and too focused.

It's a bit of a mess then: a band heading down a clear path, but intentionally disorienting themselves from it. But it's a really good mess, if a bit uneven. Discopolis is a little bit of everything: hilarious (intentionally or unintentionally) and emotional, heavy as hell and still at times incredibly graceful, successfully exploring new concepts as well as sometimes clunkily forcing them down the band's material. But it's always, always memorable and most of the time really interesting and still solidly written underneath the ProTools trickery where you can literally hear the cuts between takes. It is, as expected, a little uneven and if there's a fault to Discopolis it's that its flow is all over the place and in particular that it ends with a whimper: "Epäonnisten liikemiesten helvetti" is mostly just loud and disgruntled huffing-and-puffing which at this stage feels a little regressive, and the sprawling and outro-like "Silmien ummistamisesta Nansenin galvanointiin" is a great guitar hook aimlessly lost in search of an actual song to be in. At least "Arcana" in between is one of the best marriages of machine and man that the album boasts, highlighting that in another timeline Discopolis could've been an incredibly solid industrial rock album, even if sans its quirks. "Jerusalem" too isn't as good as its admittedly impressive choir explosion of a hook would give the impression of, because that choir is the only really memorable part of the song. And if you want an example of how the flow in general feels like a crapshoot, just check out how "Aamutähti" and its skygazing grace follows three of the album's most outrageous songs and it feels like the album abruptly hits the handbrakes each and every time. Discopolis is uneven and all over the place - but it's so often close to genius too.

I can absolutely understand why one person would be over the moon for this album and another would consider it a confusing dip in quality, and boringly I meet the extremes somewhere a little more centrist. Discopolis is as thrilling and inspired as it is an odd duck hinting at a greater potential; whether that'd have been by focusing more on either its earnest or its unhinged qualities, or CMX simply tightening the quality control a little bit more. But even with that caveat, it's still one of CMX's most fascinating albums and in a thoroughly positive way. It nails that unpredictability and askewness that makes up so much of the band's DNA and appeal, which has certainly already made appearances across the past five albums but nowhere so imminently as it has in these brimstone disco floor fillers and whirlwind industrial anthems. After Discopolis CMX would calm down a little and begin their second life as a steadfast and focused rock act, as if they deliberately trapped their excess madness within the confinements of Discopolis; while it's no classic album, it's riveting to peek into its Pandora's box nonetheless.

Rating: 7/10

The Ark - The Ark EP (1996)

1) Racing With the Rabbits; 2) I Laid It Down; 3) Cracked Messiah; 4) Od Slatrom Ekil

More grim than glam: mystical ramblings and loud guitar walls. The Ark, before they realised who The Ark were. 

Key tracks: "Racing With the Rabbits", "I Laid It Down"

The thing to note about The Ark's debut EP (officially self-titled but I've heard this being referred to as Racing With the Rabbits EP too) is that this is a very different band to the one that would finally break through under the same name - after all, the EP was released four years before the debut album, and The Ark themselves had existed for a good few years before the EP was recorded. Instead of glittery glam rock and witty lyrics with a sharp tongue, the overall feel here is something more cryptic, noisier on the guitar and occasionally even veering towards dark and heavy. You can still recognise The Ark through the cracks, mostly thanks to Ola Salo's voice, but there's quite a distance between this and their eventual debut album We Are The Ark. That's something to consider when approaching the EP - I felt very cold towards this when I initially came across it due to my expectations being somewhere completely different, but as soon as you can shake that off you can very well enjoy the EP for what it is: a decent four-set song.

The first two tracks are the most Ark-like. "Racing with the Rabbits" starts like a creepy children's lullaby thanks to its recorder intro and Salo's downtone singing, but it turns into an almost-jubilant cascade of choruses the closer the track gets to its end, and you can start to hear the reach for the skies that would become emblematic for them once the band properly got going. It leads onto "I Laid It Down", which is the closest to The Ark you know (and love?) out of the four cuts, and might have even fit one of the earlier albums had it been polished further. The choral "Oppular!" chants are even something close to fun, which stands out in an otherwise quite po-faced release. They're also, perhaps not coincidentally, the best part of this EP. They're rough but there's enough real quality pushing through: a still struggling band starting to catch onto what they're actually good at.

The course correction hasn't yet quite started to crack on the second half of the EP, and it's this section where the ugly duckling reputation of this release comes from. "Cracked Messiah" is the first lyrical tease of the general territory where Salo and the band would make their home in, as opposed to the cryptic babbling and mythological references of the rest of the release, but musically its hard rock inspirations come across misguided at best, and the dark, murky atmosphere and the heavier breakdowns aren't all that well executed. The final track, "Od Slatrom Ekil" closes the EP on a more distinctive even if still not particularly remarkable fashion, mismashing ideas and elements from the rest of the EP and stretching the concoction to ten minutes, which is about six minutes too many for what it actually offers. I'm a sucker for an epic finale but "Od Slatrom Ekil" tries too hard to be one and just gets monotonous.

It's still quite interesting to listen to this in retrospect, but like many debut EPs its place is in the curio box aimed solely for the fans, and even that comes with reservations given how distinct it is from what anyone would actually consider The Ark's signature sound. And that's not rare, bands quite frequently evolve their sound from their very start to even when they get to a proper studio for the first time, but most of the time there's a clear line between the distant end points. This EP on the other hand is fascinating simply because of how distinctly different it is, even when you can hear some of the same DNA bubbling through. It doesn't excuse half the EP from being rather bland, no matter how hard the band try to sound mystical and artsy, and I honestly wouldn't go out of one's way to seek this out unless you’re a real enthusiast. I would absolutely love to have witnessed this particular evolution in real time when it happened, though - there's got to be some very interesting stylistic experiments in the four years between this and the debut.

Rating: 5/10

Physical corner: Slim jewel case, lyrics hidden in the inlay of the cover slip. Fairly basic fare, as expected from an early EP. I imagine my copy is a repress given I bought it from a fairly big online store rather than a collector's site, but I've not been able to track the exact issue given the catalog number seems to have remained the same.

Kent - Verkligen (1996)

1) Avtryck; 2) Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå); 3) Gravitation; 4) Istället för ljud; 5) 10 minuter (För mig själv); 6) En timme en minut; 7) Indianer; 8) Halka; 9) Thinner; 10) Vi kan väl vänta tils imorgon

Kent discover how to write great songs on the next step of their steady climb to success.

Key tracks: "Avtryck", "Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå)", "En timme en minut"

Talking about the first set of Kent albums isn’t particularly thrilling, simply because they’re such a steady evolution of the same set of ideas, improving incrementally. The self-titled debut record a year before had a good sound but the band were still inexperienced and hadn’t quite discovered their own voice or a consistent songwriting angle. Verkligen is more or less the same as before in its sound, but Kent have now learned how to write the occasional cracking tune.

That’s a bit of a glib statement admittedly, because despite the loss of rhythm guitarist Martin Roos and the temporary quartet line-up, Kent sound bigger and dare I say more ambitious on Verkligen. The sound and the band's playing are a lot more dynamic and multi-dimensional than on the debut, leading to a more varied set of songs - including the band’s first epic extended jams which would become a traditional appearance on their albums afterwards (“En timme en minut” more honestly by way of a rock-out finale, “Vi kan väl väntä tils imorgon” with a fake-out ending). There’s more additional instrumentation beyond the guitar-bass-drums core of the band, and “Avtryck” starting the album by quickly drowning its opening guitar riff with a string section is almost certainly an intentional message from the band indicating that they’re thinking bigger now. Kent haven’t strayed too far from the gloriously mid-90s britrocking debut, but they’ve built upon it: growth, not change.

 

By far the biggest difference between one year earlier and now is that Kent have come up with some really good songs under their wing this time. "Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå)" most obviously, starting the band's climb in popularity and it does absolutely sound like a hit single would: punchy and straight to the point, hooks for days and gloriously nineties guitar walls. If "Avtryck" signalled the band was aiming for a wider scale, "Kräm" is the proof that they've started to discover additional dimensions in their actual songwriting, even if the song itself is a relatively straightforward rocker. But compare absolutely anything on the debut to "Kräm" and it's clear the band's approach to melody, dynamics and flow of the song are on an entirely different level from before - and while it may not be so immortal when compared against the wider discography, it's still a great song that gives out a rush of wild energy whenever it plays. Its big anthem hooks are exciting in an almost primal way, hitting that feel-good spot in your brain; and it sounds like a band hungry for world domination, semi-accidentally stumbling onto the launch codes to do so.

 

Verkligen is generally at its best when it keeps the energy high. "10 minuter (För mig själv)" is basically a "Kräm" reprise but little more leaning towards its relentless energy, "Avtryck" grows subtly in its urgency and its strength as it marches along (and as an opener it's a great starting bang for the record), and the punctuating guitar licks of "Halka" are ridiculous enough to work as genuinely fun hooks (a more cynical mind would say they're repeating the trick from "Stenbrott" off the previous record, but it's done better here). "En timme en minut" is the clear overall highlight, as Kent take their first step towards their big centrepiece songs. Its eight minutes of dynamically building, sustained rock-out are absolutely great, with different arrangement details during the long instrumental sections emerging and disappearing from way of others in a fashion that stops it from being monotonous. The band's performance - and Berg's vocals especially - sounds far more grown up and focused than the rest of the record, with an ear for production and arrangement that shows their growing desire to enrichen their own soundworld in service of their songs. Kent are still taking gentle steps towards being a great band throughout Verkligen, and "En timme en minut" is their first unequivocally great song and the album's real key track  - a sign of things to come

 

It's where the band retract back to that mid-90s slow and moody guitar angst where Verkligen shows most obviously that it's not too far from the debut. The more meandering songs are more about their mood and sound than genuinely memorable songwriting, and like on the debut it's a case of too many things being cut from the same cloth that's starting to wear thin. Thus, while e.g. "Istället för ljud" and "Gravitation" are enjoyable as they pass by on record, their sloggish pace never reaches any heights of real excitement even when broken by the occasional loud power chord chorus, blending together from one forlorn guitar melody to another - and "Indianer" and "Thinner" later on aren't even trying to stand out by the sounds of them. You can hear what Kent are going for with them but these crawling mood cuts aren't where the band's strengths lie at this stage - even though they seem to think otherwise. But credit where credit is due, they've saved the best for the last and the melancholy but bombastic "Vi kan väl vänta tils imorgon" is a really good closer for the album, especially once it lifts off in preparation for its double ending. Lumping it among the slowburners isn't necessarily all that befitting because there's far more life to it than any of the other songs listed in this paragraph, but that's primarily because it does the right thing of not sticking to a slowcore feel as its sole purpose. Just like "En timme en minut" it feels like a culmination of this particular stage of Kent: both songs are where the band find everything clicking in place.

 

But on Verkligen, they're still a work in progress. I started this review by mentioning it's hard to talk about the first three Kent albums independently because they all form one very linear line of development, and Verkligen suffers the most from it because it's less Empire Strikes Back and more Two Towers as the trilogy mid-piece: a story with no clear start or end. It's catching a glimpse of the band at the path to greatness, but still figuring out the right fork in the road to take. While it has its strengths and couple of particular Kent classics, there's very rarely a time where I'd opt for Verkligen over Isola if I'm in the mood of listening to Kent at their most 90s. Everything great that occurs on Verkligen, they'd pull off better elsewhere in the near future - and so Verkligen slipping between the cracks isn't an indictment of its quality as such, but largely due to its place in Kent's development.

Rating: 6/10

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go (1996)

1) Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier; 2) A Design for Life; 3) Kevin Carter; 4) Enola/Alone; 5) Everything Must Go; 6) Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky; 7) The Girl Who Wanted to Be God; 8) Removables; 9) Australia; 10) Interiors (Song for Willem De Kooning); 11) Further Away; 12) No Surface All Feeling

Loss and determination projected through orchestrated guitar anthems. Not just a new chapter but a grand new start.

Key tracks: "A Design for Life"; "Enola/Alone"; "Everything Must Go"

The Holy Bible had always been an anomaly. Their third album wasn't part of the expected trajectory for Manic Street Preachers, it was something that burst out of its context: a high-strung band lashing out their internal intensity. They would have never been able to follow it up like-to-like, and certainly not after Richey Edwards vanished without a trace in February 1995. Manics' entire legacy was looking to finish there and then, three best friends uncertain whether they could continue without the fourth. It took the coming together of one particular song to convince the band to continue, to assure them that they still had more to say by staying together.

The Manics didn't fit in with the Britpop scene raging on in the mid-90s UK, but "A Design for Life" briefly made them part of it. Much like Pulp and "Common People", this was a seasoned band striking a chord by painting the ever-present British class tensions clearly visible and dressing it up in a form that captured the attention of those who heard it over the radio. The Manics had been plenty anthemic before, see Gold Against the Soul for the 101 class on that, but "A Design for Life" is something else. It's refined, with its leading jangle and the petite guitar strikes punctuating every beat. The strings feel alive, swiveling around the structure of the song with class. The chorus is a grand act, each appearance like a rousing finale in its own right, Bradfield shouting his lungs with the belief of his band's namesake. There's a weighty gravitas to his voice and to the sound that the band had never had before. It lead to "A Design for Life" becoming a career-defining hit in the UK and it launched the band to mass consciousness in an unprecedented way. For a band who had semi-jokingly started their career with the manifesto of becoming global superstars from day one (and then split immediately afterwards but let's forget about that one), it was a huge moment purely from a personal perspective; just completely unintended this time around.

That moment of triumph was something the band deserved after everything they had gone through, as they resurrected themselves from a moment of darkness in a phoenix-like fashion. Everything Must Go is an album about loss and learning how to deal with it, finding the will to live again no matter how hard it seems - if The Holy Bible was a dark, fearful storm then its follow-up was the day after, everything in the neigbourhood damaged and blown down but the gentler skies above giving the chance to rebuild again. "A Design for Life" is uncharacteristic in its directly political nature for the rest of the album, with Wire spending most of his debut as the band's sole lyricist reflecting on loss ("Enola/Alone" was inspired by a photo of Richey and the band's former, deceased manager Philip Hall posing together), the internal guilt of moving on from it ("Everything Must Go") and the instinctual desire to run away ("Australia", so named because it was the furthest place geographically that came to Wire's mind). Songs that the band had started with Richey and still featured his lyrics were chosen to be finalised as a form of tribute; to cap it off, the reverb-drenched outro to the album-closing "No Surface All Feeling" is the only known instance of Richey's guitar playing making it to a studio album. None of the three men were fully comfortable moving on without Richey but while the album is surrounded by his ghost, the music itself plays with clarity and liberation: it's a three-legged dog learning to run again and embracing the unity their band still brings to them.

Everything Must Go sets up what we can consider the archetypical Manic Street Preachers sound: big guitar walls, a helping of strings and a sense of uplifting melancholy permeating throughout, where quiet introspection meets grandstanding choruses. The key difference is how the band tone things down from the flashiness of the earlier albums; where the band formerly embraced the dramatics of their whole performance, now the actual song has become the key thing that everything else works in service to. This includes Bradfield cutting his guitar histrionics down and placing less emphasis on showcase solos, sometimes even opting for a less-is-more approach as seen on "A Design for Life", and overall paying more attention to the overall arrangement of each part rather than just letting himself lead the way at all times. Everything Must Go offers the band's best melodic work to date and it matches it perfectly with the triumphant rock choruses that the bound found themselves drawn into following the initial conception of "A Design for Life" serving as the launch pad. These anthems are the best parts of the album as well, with the bittersweet "Enola/Alone" and the gloriously sweeping title track easily rivalling their famous hit sibling, and the escapist joy of "Australia" and the heartache of "No Surface All Feeling" providing the late-album counterparts that more than match up. They're all phenomenal songs, full of heart as much as they have sheer power. The only thing you could count against them is the overall middling drum sound that discolours the entire album, which lacks the punch needed for these types of songs; it's not a major complaint but it's been my bugbear since day one and I had to interject it somewhere here.

The more nuanced direction also gives way to some sudden breaks from its guitar volume. The primarily acoustic "Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky" most obviously of all; it serves as the unofficial direct tribute to Richey, utilising one of the more directly sad lyrics he left behind as the guiding force for a solemn, melancholy number that gets a gentle lilt from a delicate harp behind Bradfield's otherwise bare-bones arrangement. "Removables" is the other most identifiably Edwards-heavy song of the set and it's also similarly moody, with a brooding, growing intensity which points out that The Holy Bible days weren't that long ago, remixing that album's musical landscape into something more befitting of the band at the present. The best thing about the sequence where both of these tracks appear is that the song sandwiched between them,  "The Girl Who Wanted to Be God", is the album's single-handedly most musically jubilant number, and it makes the entire trio of songs sound stronger thanks to the contrast; "The Girl Who Wanted to Be God" itself is a jubilant, sweet number full of strings and love for vintage pop swoons, and it jumps furthest and brightest into the orchestral accompaniments that the band saw fit to include across the album. There's also a leap to suddenly acknowledging rhythm which paves way to some of the album's best deep cuts. "Kevin Carter" is an iconic single on its own right but somewhat hidden in-between the more obvious anthems, but its borderline funky groove and Moore's trumpet debut is something previously unheard for the band and somehow perfectly underlines the song's neurotic lyrics. "Interiors" is the album's hidden gem, similarly dominated by its janky bass groove which gives way to a musically poignant, swooping chorus where James' voice resonates far more than the song's biographical nature would allude to.

That extra oomph of resonance - or feeling, or however you want to call it - is at the heart of Everything Must Go. The songs are great (though "Further Away", which is a good enough tune, always felt a bit in the wrong crowd even if it's grown on me over the years), not just musically top-notch but they bear the sound of the formerly almost cartoon-like band finally revealing their true selves, and letting the emotion underneath subsequently wash over. Manics accidentally tapped into the musical zeitgeist of the time but Everything Must Go has always been an awkward fit to the Britpop canon, not just because of the history of the band themselves but because it's too sincere, too heartfelt among the company of posers and patriotic cosplay that most of its peers were characterised by. The songs have the bombast of a stadium-soaring fist-pumper (and they'd naturally become such for the band), but beneath the walls of sound is a heartbroken band putting absolutely everything of themselves into every single note, because they needed it to survive and to go on. It doesn't matter if the subject matter was a political lambast, a biographical narrative of whoever they last read about or something thus-far uncharacteristically sincere - it's made to sound like the band depend on it to survive. It's the most characteristic element of Everything Must Go and the aspect that splits it apart from the numerous attempts the band would try to recreate its sound in the coming decades: come in for the catchy choruses, stay for the sudden emotional swells.

When the Manics debuted with Generation Terrorists, they were characterised by the album's pure conviction for the music and what it represented, in the way that the ideal kind of debut from a hungry young band only can. Only five years had passed in-between, but the raggedy glam punks were now melancholy, experienced craftsmen and Everything Must Go stands as a new debut album, re-establishing Manics' new identity. Everything Must Go carries the legacy of its preceding album trilogy on its back but it is in the purest possible way a true reinvention for the band. While it's massively different from the albums before it, its sound and style are a natural fit for the band, as if this is what they were born for all this time along, it just took an odd way to get there. It's not a shout against the former albums, nor its me saying this is absolutely one of the band's very best: but it's a life-affirming record that's more special than it mayhaps initially comes across as.

Rating: 8/10

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

1) How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us; 2) The Wake-Up Bomb; 3) New Test Leper; 4) Undertow; 5) E-Bow the Letter; 6) Leave; 7) Departure; 8) Bittersweet Me; 9) Be Mine; 10) Binky the Doormat; 11) Zither; 12) So Fast, So Numb; 13) Low Desert; 14) Electrolite

A road trip that arguably does the best job possible in distilling the very essence of R.E.M. and its many varied forms under the covers of one studio album. 

Key tracks: "New Test Leper", "E-Bow the Letter", "Bittersweet Me"

R.E.M.’s move to a more electrified direction in the mid-90s had an infamous aftermath. With the style shift inspired by a desire to go on stage again the band naturally embarked on an extended world tour following Monster, which in hindsight turned out to be a terrible decision. The tour was plagued by a number of problems throughout its run, including a number of health issues within the band which culminated in Bill Berry’s brain aneurysm, leaving him to retire the band after recovery for the sake of his own physical well-being. The incident gave the era an ominous end that often overshadows the period’s big positive: the band’s greatly increased creativity. The band had a lot of songs coming out, and the audience were treated each night to at least one song that hadn’t yet seen an official release. R.E.M. had never really managed to fully capture their live energy in studio despite their best efforts earlier on, and eventually someone came up with the idea of why bother trying to replicate when you could just record those news songs as they happened. New Adventures in Hi-Fi was released during the Monster tour and is a curious mixture of a live and studio record, featuring a set of brand new songs recorded throughout the tour in soundchecks and on stage, audience noise mixed to nothing, with a handful of brand new studio recordings scattered within. It was a brand new studio album as much as it was a road trip recollection, with travel photos and place names adorning the liner notes, and it is about as unpolished as R.E.M. could be at the time.

New Adventures acts much like a road trip too, traveling around and spotting new sights along the way - in sound it’s one of R.E.M.’s most varied. The body of the songs is still very heavily guitar-driven as per the band’s general guideline at the time, but there’s a marked move past Monster’s walls of fuzz into a more freewheeling, natural direction, shuffling through various R.E.M. traits of the past but with a kick in the backbone and a rawer tone. When the band do stray from the central sound, they go over and beyond: there’s absolutely nothing on the rest of the album that sounds like the piano-led casual stroll “Electrolite”, the deeply atmospheric “E-Bow the Letter” and the melancholy Western drawl of “How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us” (which completely blows away my general theory that each R.E.M. album starter is a perfect descriptor for the rest of the record), and they don’t even sound like each other. And yet, they make perfect sense in the context because of how wild-spirited and lively New Adventures in general is (hilariously, these are also three of the album’s four singles).

The idea to capture R.E.M. alive in their natural habitat also has the trait of making it clear how great a rock band they really were. While they very obviously always operated within that wide genre net, you could rarely call them exemplary of what we think about when we imagine what a rock band is like: being initially too gentle for it in the early days and then obstructed by the arrangement choices of the turn of the 90s, and even the hyper-rock of Monster was so over-the-top it could come off parodical. This time, due to the live atmosphere around most of New Adventures and how everyone is playing together simultaneously, not only does their beefed-up stage sound show up in all its strength but also the energy and chemistry of the context have been captured perfectly, and through it R.E.M. soar. New Adventures is R.E.M.’s most energetic album if only because of the power the band share between each other - but speedy powerhouses like “So Fast, So Numb”, “Departure” and “The Wake-Up Bomb” exemplify that energy literally as well. It’s a dumb thing to say from a pseudo-live album but it feels alive, every song running electrified and everyone’s performance amped up.

Indeed, if Monster saw the band answering their reputation as alternative rock champions by posing as an archetypal rock band, then this is R.E.M. answering for that moniker genuinely. They tone down some of Monster’s eccentricities and bring back the signature R.E.M.-tone, but keep the fire under their feet. “Bittersweet Me” sounds like a classic 90s rock song right from the first listen and is full of the yearning and ache while still having that swagger and cool around it. “Be Mine” on the other hand is a stadium torchlight moment built for the band’s growing crowds - complete with an exploding kick and guitar rev-ups right near the end -  but has a vulnerability, a warm human touch that still makes it feel intimate. “Undertow” is all churning guitar noise and pounding drums, exploding as it sees fit. At times it’s genuinely intense: the seven-minute “Leave” is the band’s longest song overall and it spends nearly all of that length winding itself more and more tense, stuck in its own dark musical loop while Michael’s voice grows more and more desperate. The era had its darker underbelly with the band’s fatigue and internal tensions resulting from it, and “Leave” is a reminder of it lurking in the background.

With the twists and turns it takes and how well it showcases the band themselves, New Adventures in Hi-Fi actually comes across as a quintessential R.E.M. album, in a way. It shows so many of the band’s sides from the rowdy to the intimate, the dark and the light, and the quirky sense of humour and the emotional sincerity, that it’s like a self-composed best of mixtape, representing the band in a nutshell - especially with their strengths both in studio and stage environment presented organically together, blending into one another. Just to hammer the point, among all the other excellent tracks there are a couple of integral cornerstone songs for the band. One is “New Test Leper” which is arguably the most R.E.M.-like song ever conceived, the one song that defines their signature sound and all the elements that make it from Buck’s jangles to Mills’ characteristic bass, paired with a gorgeous melody and an emotional charge that make it a fantastic song in general. Another is “E-Bow the Letter”, a haunting semi-spoken word piece guided by the ethereal sound of the titular gadget and backed by Patti Smith’s world-weary vocals, with a sonic richness that could only come from studio (it’s one of the few songs here recorded in a traditional environment). It’s the sound of every insomniac night spent staring through windows, every last stretch of a long journey, every moment of introspection and eventual flicker to a state of calming still. The verses pull you under the waves, the choruses bounce back upon through Buck’s chiming guitar riff. If it’s not R.E.M.’s best song it’s tied with whatever its biggest competitor is. It’s a phenomenal song - and of course, amusingly enough, a complete break from rest of New Adventures both in sound and spirit.

There’s plenty of other great moments too - particular favourites include the cheekily sex-obsessed Monster leftover “Binky the Doormat”, the impossibly feel-good “Electrolite” that always makes the world a little better and the hypnotic, unique shuffle of “How the West Was Won”, all which are completely different from one another and shine in wholly different ways. The batting average is very, very high here, with the only real dent being the short throwaway interlude “Zither”, and even that’s pleasant for what it is. Thus, New Adventures in Hi-Fi is like a parade of triumph, and it’s appropriately so given it closes off an era, even if completely by accident and not in the happiest of circumstances. With Berry’s departure sneakily lurking ahead, New Adventures is a convenient encapsulation of everything that came before musically, a summing up of the band. It is more a continuation than a re-definition in its nature and thus not necessarily an obvious stand-out in the band’s discography, but it’s slyly a classic in its own right: if it’s like a victory lap, it’s one that’s well in due. There’d be a change after this album, not for worse but for different nonetheless, and New Adventures is a brilliant and fitting send-off for the band as four-piece.

Rating: 9/10

Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister (1996)

1) The Stars of Track and Field; 2) Seeing Other People; 3) Me and the Major; 4) Like Dylan in the Movies; 5) Fox in the Snow; 6) Get Me Away from here, I'm Dying; 7) If You're Feeling Sinister; 8) Mayfly; 9) The Boy Done Wrong Again; 10) Judy and the Dream of Horses

First shot at an actual attempt to start a career in music. Still has all the hallmarks of a thoroughly pleasant B&S experience, but maybe they should have waited more than five months from Tigermilk.

Key tracks: "The Stars of Track and Field", "Seeing Other People", "Me and the Major"

Tigermilk was little more than a glorified university project, but it captured far more attention than Stuart Murdoch and co could have ever imagined. Critical acclaim followed, labels got interested and everyone wanted more from this dainty little pseudo-group, and Murdoch decided to turn Belle and Sebastian into a real band. If You're Feeling Sinister was recorded quickly after signing up with Jeepster - their second album within a year, released within five months from Tigermilk - and it's a response to the new reality. It's a more seriously composed record, with a more nuanced take on the style the group won people over with on Tigermilk; a real debut album from a real band.

If You're Feeling Sinister leaves me a little colder than it probably should, and some of that can probably be blamed on the haphazard way I have navigated across the B&S discography, with this album somehow being one of the last ones I heard from the group (even after the b-side compilations). While a major milestone for Belle and Sebastian in terms of establishing their early signature sound, by the time I personally got around to it I had heard everything it had to offer before already and I had heard it in more interesting ways. Tigermilk may lack the finesse but it in its place it had a whole load of quirky charm, as well an unexpected off-beatness to it that If You're Feeling Sinister deliberately avoids. You won't find curveballs like the debut's "Electronic Renaissance" to an even remote degree here, and instead everything more off-the-cuff was released on the EPs surrounding Sinister. The following couple of full-length elements would then further develop this particular sound while including some of those unexpected elements to a more balanced degree. In comparison to its surrounding releases If You're Feeling Sinister sounds practically a tad plain, a work taking shape but still in progress - and I can't shake that feeling off.

It's also clear that the whole thing was written, recorded and released within a couple of months. It would be downright impossible for Murdoch to ever write anything genuinely subpar - he's one of the most perfectly pleasant songwriters around and even in his weaker moments there's still something thoroughly heartwarming in the way he gently plays with his melodies. He makes irresistible melodies sound like the easiest thing in the world and it always works to some extent. There is no way you can even remotely dislike If You're Feeling Sinister if you're in the slightest into Murdoch's tropes or the whole "shy bookish university boys blushing hard about shy bookish university girls" vibe Belle and Sebastian's early days were rife with. in general, Thus, If You're Feeling Sinister is a perfectly fine album in what it sets out to do - twee indie pop songs with a sharp wit and lyrics with hidden twists for the observant listener - but taken as songs, one-by-one, its batting average isn't particularly striking. Most of the big hitters are encountered right from the start, with "The Stars of Track and Field" being the album's definitive song that aims to be the big opening woah moment to impress from the first step and "Seeing Other People" and "Me and the Major" offering the album's strongest melodies and memorable hooks, but after that it becomes a series of thoroughly cosy but not particularly memorable songs - and I wouldn't necessarily raise those three highlights either anywhere near the band at their best. It's obvious that despite its humble beginnings Tigermilk got the best parts of the early material, and wheeling out If You're Feeling Sinister so soon gives the impression of needless rushing before they had the right material in tow.

I can still readily admit to enjoying If You're Feeling Sinister and you can't deny the growth the band exhibit here. Even if there's no flights of fancy present as a possibly intentional desire to keep both feet firmly in the ground, the way If You're Feeling Sinister goes about its concepts and songwriting tropes feels more focused. It takes a step away from Tigermilk's still a little untamed imagination into something consciously more carefully laid out: there's many a moment here where it sounds like a band hard at work trying to up their game. The intent is there, it's just simply the songs that let it down. As much as I listen to this, I still struggle to remember most of it by the time the album has quieted down; the latter half is particularly guilty about this to the point that it's remained as a list of titles with barely a trace left in my mind (for what it's worth, the title track is by far the best song in the final stretch solely on the strength of its incredibly simple but deadly effective title drop moment). This probably comes off harsher than it is in reality because Sinister is an alright album without any really genuine downsides, and it's full of aspects that make early Belle and Sebastian so charming. There just isn't that much meat around its twee bones when compared to everything else released by the band.

Rating: 6/10