R.E.M.
Monster

Let's start with the cover: a curious animal that vaguely resembles a feline on an orange background. That title: "Monster". They had promised a rock album, and it is rock that feeds the tracks of this robust and vigorous album, absorbing a bit of everything: grunge, hard rock, psychedelia, even soul. Michael Stipe's voice remains the same, but the group's sound has changed enough to surprise. Gone is the baroque and dreamy intimacy of "Automatic For The People": the imaginative and eclectic arrangements of that album have been completely abandoned, leaving behind a solid rock skeleton. And R.E.M, surprise surprise, also proves they know what they are doing.

The anthem of the moment can only be "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?": distortions, a pounding rhythm, psychedelic tremors, and the usual "arty" lyrics by Stipe transform the song into a hit single. Uncertainty, apathy, anger: all that is on full display in the song, and indeed, as you continue listening, you realize how the album gradually becomes a container of increasingly dark moods: the shadowy and decadent hard-glam of "Crush With Eyeliner" (featuring Thurston Moore), where the vocals are led by Stipe's filtered voice and Buck's dark and menacing tremolo, the bizarre and decidedly out of place synth-pop coated in guitars of "King Of Comedy", the rampaging full-throttle ride of "Star 69", and the depressed soul ballad "Strange Currencies" (almost a clone of "Everybody Hurts") are all steeped in the melancholy that has accompanied the group's production from the very beginning, but something has changed: Stipe's lyrics employ the same almost collage-like technique highlighted in previous years, but here his approach is much more in line with the "hip" sarcasm and irony of the '90s, becoming almost cynical and threatening in the obsessive "I Took Your Name" (a paranoid digression on identity theft), the Doors-like "Circus Envy," and the morbid voyeuristic fantasy infused with oriental sounds of "You". The poignant and distorted electric elegy of "Let Me In" is instead dedicated to Kurt Cobain, a great friend of Stipe and admirer of the band.

As they say: a full-fledged makeover, and a very successful one at that. In the '90s, it was fashionable for the sacred monsters of the '80s: just as U2 with their techno-industrial infatuations, so the R.E.M with their rock tangents. In both cases, I consider the results more than good, and thus a surprise like this "Monster" is absolutely delightful to me. The power of rock, or the power of a band capable of reinventing itself and challenging itself? A breakthrough album, primarily with their own past, at which many turned up their noses, but to which more than a nod will have to be given when R.E.M becomes a relic (in about twenty years, more or less, from now).