For R.E.M, the group we grew up with, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," is really their coda. After "New Adventures," with the loss of drummer Bill Berry, the band morphed into something different. So this is the last chance we have to capture the R.E.M. of old, but be warned this just isn't a group comfortable with their lofty position of pop and rock icons and churning out the same old stuff (not that the same old stuff was anything to ignore). This is R.E.M at their experimental and expanding best. As they made their last album with Berry, they were still growing. Now they still make good music, but come across more as the Michael Stipe Group with, "Up" and "Reveal."

This album was made on the road during the "Monster" tour in which untold tragedies, infirmities and maladies befell the band. Instead of coming off like sound checks and a semi-live album though, it really does reach the listener as coming from the studio, sound-wise. But maybe there is an immediacy behind the songs, a one take, no overlays sound that belies its live origins. Whatever it is, this is one great, energetic, mysterious and beautiful record.

"Undertow" does for water what "Fall on Me" did for the sky. "Go down to the water, get down in the water, walk up off the water...I'm drowning." E-bow The Letter lets Stipe get to duet with one of R.E.M.'s big influences Patti Smith as she drones a mother in the background, "I'll take you over," Stipe answers, "aluminum it tastes like fear" and in the cold bite of aluminum on your teeth the fear analogy works deep and real.

One of R.E.M's best songs is on this album, but hardly noticed to the world at large, "Leave." This loopback wailing of a sonic guitar out of control kicks in after an acoustic lullaby. At first it seems to break the melancholy darkness of the song, but then subtly blends in leaving an other-worldness to the drone of drawn out chords. Stipe croons, "that's what keeps me down, to leave it all behind," as Mills intones beautiful harmony in the background in all the right places (something he has given up on these days with Reveal). The song is beautiful and intense, one of the Athens Five's best.

"Binky the Doormat," though quite strange lyrically is classic R.E.M. Even more classic and hearkening back to the days of "Life's Rich Pageant," is "So Fast, So Numb." It's a rave-up with Stipe's voice cutting a darkened growl, "this is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see."

And "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" I think is exactly what the band wanted to put out, not trying to guess what the public wanted to hear or what would sell. At this point they already reached the public and sold tons of records..."New Adventures" allowed them to make the music that felt right at the time. And what music it is, my second all time R.E.M favorite behind "Life's Rich Pageant," an overlooked gem, a diamond in the rough.

I have an extremely difficult time choosing between this one and "Automatic for the People" as the best R.E.M. album, so I don't bother anymore. "Automatic" was more intrinsically moving and gorgeous, but "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" is much more varied. It runs the gamut from soothing ballads ("How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us") to hard rockers ("So Fast So Numb"). Another thing in this album's favor is that its instrumental, "Zither," is better.

But, on its own merits, this album is harrowing in its disillusionment, yet it's not depressing. It's great that you can understand Michael Stipe in most of the songs. The lyrics tell of disillusionment of posturing ("The Wake-Up Bomb") and religion ("New Test Leper").

I simply love most of the music, too. "E-Bow the Letter" has one of the most haunting melodies in any R.E.M. song, and Patty Smith's backing vocals only add to that effect. "Bittersweet Me" has probably the best mix of mellow sensibility and guitar work of any R.E.M. song. I've always adored Stipe's vocals over piano, so it shouldn't surprise that "Electrolite" is one of my favorite songs. Everything: piano, vocal, strings, percussion, guitar blend so well in it, and what better way to end an album than with "I'm outta here"? Of course, it's a bit eerie now since Bill Berry left, but it's still very apropos. Another great song in terms of sonic effect is "Leave," with its awesome guitar/bass/drum lines and Stipe's soaring vocals in the refrain. "Undertow" is exceptional in the way it builds throughout the verses, and the music and harmonies here are superb in execution. This song also features one of the more odd R.E.M. songs in "Binky the Doormat" then again, "Automatic" had "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite," so maybe the guys have to get quirky at least once in their masterpieces. This whole album is excellent in its variety and complexity, in both lyrics and music.

This album combines the gentle experimentation of 'Automatic for the People' with the feedback romance of 'Monster.' REM figured out a way to take the best of those two albums to create this, one of their most underrated albums.

When I first saw it, I was in a record store. I read a lot of music magazines and I thought I was keeping up with what's going on in the record industry, but I had no idea a new REM album was coming out. So I figured it had to be a collection of B-sides, or some kind of 'odds and sods' CD. The cover and the title are deceptive. The album looks so understated, with such a generic name, that you can almost miss it.

I'd glad I figured out what it is, because it became my favorite REM album. Michael Stipe's voice is somewhere between creepy and beautiful on every track. The moody songs have the kind of repetitive perfection of Brian Eno's best ambient albums. The rock songs drone and buzz with noise. It's also worth noting that this is one of the longest REM albums. At 65 minutes, it would be a double album back in the vinyl days. I highly recommend this CD, even if you aren't an REM fan.

After the globe-conquering high of Automatic For The People, REM looked in danger of burning out, with the not-quite-properly-realised Monster and the stress of the tour which followed. But out of that tour's ashes rose this astonishing collection. It became perhaps inevitably their darkest album yet, but, crucially, that never makes it hard to listen to.

It's pretty long at 66 minutes, but it hardly ever drains the listener. It's a collection of studio takes, live performances and soundchecks, and a lot of the energy filters through onto the CD.

The album opens in characteristically uncharacteristic fashion, with the distorted beats and edgy piano line of How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us, a stark and twisted country-rock piece with a unnervingly off-kilter piano solo in the middle. The Wake-Up Bomb could hardly be more different, a blazing glam-rock storm which carries the listener along on a tide of acidic sentiment. "I had to write the great American novel," sneers Michael Stipe sarcastically, "I had a neutron bomb." The interesting thing about New Adventures is that, whereas on Monster they tried desperately to rock out and always sounded a bit contrived, here they do it with great natural ease.

New Test Leper has a wonderfully pretty, lilting melody. It tells of a AIDS sufferer's awful experience on a TV chat show, and Stipe does it brilliantly, making his character totally sympathetic without ever being patronising. The lyrics are actually essential reading. "When I tried to tell my story, they cut me off to take a break. I sat silent five commercials - I had nothing left to say."

Undertow is one of the album's most intriguing tracks. Based around just two chords, it feels oppressive and claustrophobic, but in a positive way. It intrigues most because it sounds not unlike Nirvana. The verses in particular sound a lot like the verses on the 'new' song, You Know You're Right, and Stipe's vocals are every bit as dark as Kurt Cobain's tended to be; "I am breathing water, I am breathing water; you know a body's got to breathe."

After Undertow comes the single E-Bow The Letter. It is a pleasant surprise that in our bloated, airbrushed charts this became as big a hit as it did, because it's DARK. Really dark, and not a little scary. Stipe's delivery is pitch-perfect, and contrasts perfectly with Patti Smith's vampiric promise, "I'll take you over." In my opinion it's REM's best single ever, and one of the best singles of the 90s.

Leave, which follows, opens with a haunting, delicate acoustic guitar riff for a minute, before an unhinged car alarm kicks in. It doesn't go away for six minutes. It could have been immensely irritating, but in fact it's a stroke of sonic genius. Beneath that racket, the song is up to its eyes in its own undiluted misery, "I lost myself in sorrow, I lost myself in pain, I lost myself in clarity," before finally drowning in a sea of feedback.

Departure rocks with a visceral, burning energy that makes you wonder how amazing it must sound live, with Michael Stipe screaming, "GO, GO, GO, YEAH!!" halfway through. The disillusion and pain return, however, with Bittersweet Me. Its chord changes are refreshingly intelligent, while Stipe admits, "I'm tired and naked, I don't know what I'm hungry for, I don't know what I want anymore."

What follows defies all expectations. After all that misery, pain and darkness, REM do a 180-degree turn and produce quite possibly one of the sweetest, most affecting love songs ever. Its verses display rich, lush imagery ("I'll by the sky above the Ganges, I'll be the vast and stormy sea, I'll be the lights that guide you inwards"), while its chorus simply proclaims, "You and me." The extraordinary sweeping guitar phrases at the end just round off a perfect song.

Binky The Doormat is most notable for the stunning interaction between Stipe and Mike Mills in the chorus. "Have you lost your place?" asks Stipe, to which Mills counters, "No way, no way." As demonstrated time and time again on this album, particularly on Departure and Undertow, Mills' vocals are the perfect complement for Stipe's, especially when used contrapuntally.

Zither is a fragile two-minute instrumental, one of only two inessential tracks on the album, along with Low Desert, which strives a little too hard to be bluesy and 'widescreen' and sacrifices the memorable tunes of the other songs. But sandwiched between the two is an absolute gem, So Fast So Numb, a full-on, turbocharged interpretation of a drug-fuelled affair. It opens with a drum line reminiscent of that which opened Orange Crush, and the tension and pace never lets up. "Listen," cries Stipe to his troubled subject. "This is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see." It carries an urgency rarely heard before in an REM song.

The closer, Electrolite, is perfect. REM know how to close out an album, as Find The River on Automatic demonstrated, and this is every bit as good. A beautiful, twilit piano ballad, it rejects the pain of the rest of the album and offers instead optimism and hope. "Twentieth century, go to sleep," purrs Stipe. "I'm not scared." It's a happy ending to a long, tumultous journey. Will REM ever produce an album as intense, beautiful or satisfying as this again? If not - well, this is some peak.

One of the strongest and most frequent opinions you will hear (and read) of this album is how the listener didn't initially like it. So often I have heard "Well, when I first listened it wasn't one of my favorties, but now it has to be one of their best!" I agree with that opinion that NAIHF has to the be the strongest and most cohesive of all of their albums, and as much has to be appreciated in whole, not picked apart in singles. Why does everyone share the same opinon of belated appreciation? Simple. This album was WAY ahead of its time. If it weren't for REM striking their own alt-rock/country notes in this album, I feel that further masters such as Wilco and Ryan Adams (among others)would of sounded merely broodish. This wasn't an album, it was a premonition.