R.E.M. - New Adventure's in Hi-Fi (review)

Grade: A Who else, but Michael Stipe, could bestow us with the most concise treatise on the bittersweet, golden age of alternative rock. Actually, the album plays more like a comprehensive thesis on the state of the world in general, I think (I hope). Appropriately timed and executed – all bet’s are off! Following the ultra-cynical, emotionally repressed Monster – Stipe atones with the band’s finest achievement – a culmination of projected tenderness, pain, and glee… a self-imposed conclusion, humbly stated. To reduce such a “statement” into a review seems criminal, yet, to Stipe’s credit, assuming such a vulnerable status in the realm of pop music, must be validated, as often as one can. This is the definitive catharses of an entire era - encapsulated in measured breathes, tonal quality. As fierce as any work by any alternative band of that era – along with Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness . . . more than enough sustenance for any rightfully disheartened teenager. [Justice is due: play with candle lit, afterhours...]