When R.E.M. gathered to work on their follow-up to Automatic For The People, they were itching to getting back to touring, and as such, wanted to make a more rock-oriented record, one that could be replicated live. The band set to work, and a fertile period of jamming and composing ideas was borne, as witnessed by the newly-released deluxe 25th edition of the maligned and misunderstood record. “Uptempo Mo Distortion” is one of the numerous passages recorded, and the instrumental shows the band playing around with sounds quite familiar to those who fell in love with the band before their MTV superstardom. While the album’s rawer sound might have felt like a departure, listening to the roots rock found here shows that they had a perfect self-awareness of “the classic R.E.M. sound.”
The Recoup 
Leave a Reply