“Reveal” has its lame tracks, but on the whole it’s so full of loveliness, subtlety and invention that it’s going to be a long while before anyone worries about R.E.M. again. Michael Stipe is famous for the elliptical, refrigerator-magnet-poetry of his lyrics. (If it weren’t for him, Kurt Cobain could never have gotten away with singing, “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, yay,” and so on.) On “Reveal,” Stipe, who’s possessed of one of the most gorgeously melancholy voices on the planet, sings about… well, I’m not entirely sure. Dreams. The unconscious. Longing. Rootlessness. Longing. Dragonflies and sea horses. Longing, longing, longing. As always, some of Stipe’s lyrics are criminally obtuse (“Charades, pop skill/Water hyacinth/ Named by a poet/Imitation of life”), but then verbs were never his strong suit.
Musically, “Reveal” is a wonderfully textured, atmospheric CD full of guitars, pianos, strings, synthesizers and various ambient murmurings. It was clearly meant for headphones, not stadiums. “Reveal” isn’t as moving as “Automatic for the People”–it doesn’t just flatten you after a single listen–and it’s not as bright and various as “New Adventures in Hi-Fi,” partly because there are so few up-tempo numbers. (Drummers tend to be the ones who say, “Are we gonna rock out, or what?”) But “Reveal” turns out to be one of those sneaky albums that get better every time you play them.
The best tracks are two sort of companion pieces about lost love, “I’ve Been High” and “I’ll Take the Rain.” The former is a moody, weirdly gorgeous keyboard ballad, in which Stipe slides in and out of a sad falsetto while guitars, drums and space-age sound effects slowly assemble and start marching behind him: “I fell down on my knees/Was I wrong? / I don’t know, don’t answer/I just needed to believe.” The latter is more conventional–it’s the “Everybody Hurts” for people who hated “Everybody Hurts”–but it’s no less touching. Again, Stipe mourns a love affair (“You laid me bare/You marked me there”), then decides that pain has its place: “If this is what you’re offering/I’ll take the rain/I’ll take the rain.” Sort of cheesy, but it worked for me. R.E.M. isn’t going anywhere. I just needed to believe.
