Reveal - R.E.M. > Reviews

Advantages: Well crafted, it sounds great.
Disadvantages: A couple of weak tracks.

...only made the release of Reveal ever the more great. The album is the nearest they have come to revisiting their biggest-selling album and commerical breakthrough, 1992's 'Automatic for the people'. Reveal was recorded over 18 months in various locations including Vancouver, Miami and Dublin to name a few. This is an album that is set to please almost anybody. The album is aptly titled, as with each repeated play it exposes yet more beauty and ... Read review

Advantages: Theres bits you can sing along to and stuff...!
Disadvantages: Still not the best.

After 3 years of silence REM are back. Between the electronically arranged, 'Up' and their new LP, 'Reveal', the 'Best Rock Band in the World' (as quoted by Rollig Stone Magizine) ave fallen apart and come ack together again. Reveal is a altogether much more aucusitc soundig album compared with the last 2 REM albums, and it appears that the boys have tried to make an album which is much more for public listening. With tracks like 'The Lifting', ... Read review

Advantages: a good all round album
Disadvantages: none

When I read some of the first reviews about this album my first thought was Oh no REM have forsaken their roots and gone for the more commercial sound but I am glad to say that the critics have got it wrong. Apart form the single Imitation Of Life the rest of the tracks are the usual mixture of progressive and hard rock. The rest of the tracks are the band usual mixture of complex melodies and freaky lyrics and the albums seems to have the sort of ... Read review

Advantages: You can sink into the album
Disadvantages: Its all too short

It was never gonna be done was it, making a better album than the brilliant automatic for the people, but they did a really good job of trying to better it. The whole album has that familiar R.E.M. sound and the great voice of Micheal Stipe that we all love so much. The songs Imitation of life, All the way to Reno and I'll take the rain were all also released as singles. The album has a variety of different kinds of music on it, but generally ... Read review

Advantages: More coherent than Up, echoes the band's best work
Disadvantages: Still not like the old guitar rocky REM...

Reveal is REM back with their first album of this millennium, and showing that they plan to continue in the same vein as before. With Up, the band explored different effects in songs and used drum machines for the first time due to the departure of drummer Bill Berry. However, some of the results were hit and miss. In Reveal, the band have perfected the sound they seemed to be searching for on Up, whilst also returning to some of their old tricks ... Read review

Advantages: Sound, lyrics - hell, the damn lot!
Disadvantages: If only it lasted for days

...cannot fail to touch anyone. Anyhow, Reveal is different. It manages to be a crowd-pleaser without trying to be. It uses the new sounds found for UP, but also that melodius old R.E.M. from the early 90s. The first single, Imitation of Life is good old R.E.M. (with an excellent video that you MUST see), but it does not seem to contain the wonderful, emotiones of tracks such as Ive Been High, Dissapear, or Saturn Return. The sound is more relaxed, ... Read review

Advantages: quite original tracks
Disadvantages: new style, i think this is a disadvantage, as I liked their old style

...punky. But i don't think Reveal really compares to their older albums, anyway. ... Read review

Advantages: Tunes
Disadvantages: Don't be silly

Imagine you're Stereophonics, chuffed to bits with your latest choons and your latest trousers. You've worked hard all year to create your new album, toiling night and day to commit all that you ever wanted to say to vinyl. Once completed you rest, content. And then you hear REM's 'Reveal' and you cry because nothing, nothing that you ever do will come close to reaching the heights of this swoonsome LP. You retire, broken. Well, we can but dream. There ... Read review

Advantages: just brilliant
Disadvantages: not one bad track

...come close until i bought reveal and put it on.my god it is like the old r.e.m that i nearly cried with delight.i have to say i compare this as highly as i compare automatic for the people.if you havent bought this album yet then get in your car and go but it now.forget up or adventures in hi fi and monster this id r.e.m back to where they were at automatic for the people.a brilliant album,every track a classic,i havent turned it off since i bought ... Read review