Review Summary: Some killer more filler
This would have made a really great EP.
1. “How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us”
2. “New Test Leper”
3. “E-Bow The Letter”
4. “Be Mine”
5. “Electrolite”
This is essentially all anybody really needs to hear from New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and if you’re an impatient listener/only a casual fan of the band you can probably save yourself some time by just listening to those five songs.
That’s not to say that nothing else here is worth your time. “The Wake Up Bomb” and “Bittersweet Me”, while nothing especially crazy, are also enjoyable rockers and worth holding onto. “Bittersweet Me” in particular boasts some classic R.E.M. jangle in its verses and some very satisfying guitar crunch in its choruses. “The Wake Up Bomb” is pretty good too, though admittedly somewhat of a “cool Dad” moment, if you catch my drift. What I’m trying to say is that it is, for lack of a better word, kinda lame. R.E.M. are not exactly a hard rock band, and they usually sound just a little bit forced when they try to be. This applies here, and there’s something rather cringey about hearing middle age Michael Stipe saying sassy things like “I had to write the great American novel, I had a neutron bomb” and “practice my T-Rex moves and make a scene” - Marc Bolan he ain’t. Still, if you just go with it it’s a fun song, with plenty of energy and choruses that really soar. Oh, and some more satisfying guitar crunch.
The rest, however, is mostly filler, ranging from ok to actively boring. I don’t have a lot to say about any of it to be honest, none of it is straight up bad in the same way as some of the material on Out Of Time or the band’s post-Bill Berry output, but none of it is inspired enough to provoke any sort of reaction or opinion from me. Tracks 10-13 in particular are an absolute chore to sit through, even when I do find myself listening to the album in its entirety I generally just skip forward to “Electrolite” once “Be Mine” finishes. I guess “Undertow” has some kinda cool guitar work, and “Leave” is an interesting experiment with quite a powerful sense of purpose, although its seven minute running time really makes it drag.
This leads me on to another major issue with this record; boy is it long! An hour and five minutes long to be specific, and you really feel it. R.E.M. have always operated best with relatively short running times as their songs tend to be quite repetitive. And yet many of the songs here are stretched out past the five minute mark with no real justification for doing so. This even applies to the good material; “New Test Leper” for example would definitely benefit from being cut down to a breezy three and a half minutes, and would lose very little in the process, and “The Wake Up Bomb” has absolutely no reason to go on for as long as it does. However this stretching of track times is even more problematic in the case of the weaker material; the filler songs here really do feel like they go on forever. “Binky The Doormat” doesn’t even really have enough going for it to carry a three minute run time, let alone five minutes.
But, BUT - the five songs I highlighted at the start are something really special, easily some of the best stuff post I.R.S. R.E.M. ever did. When I initially got into R.E.M. I went through their discography in order, and I recall that when I got to this album I was taken aback by how good the best songs here were, I didn’t think they still had songs like this in them. “New Test Leper”, whilst nothing new for them, showcases R.E.M. doing what they do best, which is to JANGLE! And it jangles wonderfully, boasting a lovely climbing guitar line in its chorus and a very pretty melody. The other four are a little more adventurous, and the risks taken pay off. “E-Bow The Letter” is a rather strange song, featuring slam poetry-esque, semi-spoken word verses and a chorus based around vocal interplay between Michael Stipe and guest feature Patti Smith. It works for me despite its lack of melody; there’s something about both the weariness in Stipe’s voice and the rambling manner in which he delivers the lyrics that lends his words a sense of weight and foreboding. The result is rather haunting, aided by the sinister droning of an e-bow throughout the song. “How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us” is yet another foray into uncharted terrain for the band; it features some extremely tasteful loungey pianos and guitars and what is basically a trip-hop beat, and is all round a pretty cool little tune if I do say so myself. Nice raspy vocal performance from Stipe as well, even if the “AHHHHHS!” at the end of each chorus do sound a bit like someone just stepped on his toe.
My favourites here, however, are “Be Mine” and “Electrolite” which are just WONDERFUL. Really though, “Be Mine” is absolutely beautiful, romantic and intimate in a way that recalls snuggling up in bed with someone you really love and feeling like you could just stay there with them forever. It's a feels song guys, simple as that, and not even a few admittedly rather questionable lines can take away from that (I will admit that “I want to be your Easter bunny, I want to be your Christmas tree” is rather embarrassing - good thing that it's sung to such a beautiful melody!). “Electrolite” is a different sort of beautiful, a little less sweeping and a little more understated, but it is delightful nevertheless. It boasts a sweet, simple melody and a busy arrangement with banjos and piano and violin and it's all very charming and lovely. Endearing is the word for this one, it feels like a fond farewell and I think it would have been a wonderful way for R.E.M. to end their career, which in a way they did, as it’s the last song on their last album with the full lineup of the band. It always makes me smile. Mike Mills came up with the piano line for this song, as well as “Nightswimming”. What a sweetheart!
Still, despite the highlights, what we’re left with is an album which is both very long and very inconsistent, not exactly a winning combination. As a result its a bit of a slog to sit through from start to finish, and so kind of hard to recommend as an album. This, however, is what the skip button was invented for, and there is some really quality music here if you’re up to wading through the rest. The last great R.E.M. album? The last pretty good R.E.M. album is probably closer to the truth, but I will say that New Adventures in Hi-Fi has some of the last truly great R.E.M. songs, and is worth your time for that alone.
7
