R.E.M.: Reckoning, 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
R.E.M.: Reckoning - the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
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Monday, 13, Jul 2009 10:36
Universal, out now.
In a nutshell...
Driven, unified and timelessly independent
What's it all about?
It's the 25th anniversary re-issue of R.E.M.'s second album. It features the original ten-song album, re-mastered, plus a bonus disc featuring a previously unreleased concert recorded during the band's Little America tour at Chicago's Aragorn Ballroom on 7th July, 1984.
Who's it by?
R.E.M. formed in Athens, Georgia in 1980 over a shared love of punk and proto-punk artists such as Television and Patti Smith. They became a cult favourite, mainly on America's college radio circuit, and released Reckoning on the US independent label IRS in 1984. Much later, they went on to conquer the world.
As an example...
"Seven chinese brothers swallowing the ocean/Seven thousand years to sleep away the pain/She will return, she will return." - 7 Chinese Bros
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
It looked unlikely at the time - Reckoning peaked at number 27 in America and had only one single enter the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK it barely registered. R.E.M. had to wait until a major label move in the early 1990s to gain mainstream success, countless awards and, finally, a reassessment of their earlier catalogue.
What the others say
"While the album may not mark any major strides forward for the band, R.E.M.'s considerable strengths - Buck's ceaselessly inventive strumming, Mike Mills' exceptional bass playing and Stipe's evocatively gloomy baritone - remain unchanged." - Rolling Stone's original review, 1984
"More so than any other R.E.M. record, Reckoning is unified and energized by the very restlessness that has driven the band to explore so many different ideas and identities... Any way you look at it, this is R.E.M." - Pitchfork
So is it any good?
Their debut album Murmur was a fiercely independent and oblique opening gambit from R.E.M. - so the sonic clarity and relative accessibility of Reckoning must have come as something of a shock upon its first release 25 years ago. Here we encounter R.E.M. fully formed, giving it to us straight - still early days but their signature sound already established.
What really strikes the listener upon re-approaching this album is how instinctively the band play off each other. From the interlacing harmonies of Buck and Stipe on Harborcoat to the all-for-one propulsive rhythm of Little America - the empathy within the band raises these songs beyond their relatively simple structures.
It is also an album of exquisite moments - such as when Stipe's primal wail of "I'm sorry" on So. Central Rain punctures the Murmur-esque murk of the verses with deliberate heart-breaking abandon. The version included on the bonus live disc here takes this one step further - often hopelessly out of tune, all is forgiven in deference to those sky-scraping choruses. This sums up the live concert captured on the second disc - endearingly ragged its charms lie in hearing R.E.M. still full of youthful exuberance, more excited by playing their new songs than intent upon making them sound perfect.
R.E.M. pulled off a career-defining trick with Reckoning by sounding both reverent and revolutionary. The key touchstones of their sound lay in traditional Americana - Don't Go Back To Rockville is a straight-up country song - but they took these elements (a Byrdsian jangle, folk-inflected vocals) and worked in unison to craft something singular and purposeful enough to sound like a new genre. It's something they have pursued ever since, with mixed results, and something that still makes Reckoning a compelling, evergreen listen.
8/10
Steve Braund