REM's Reveal: Press reviews

Reveal is the 12th album released by REM

Press reviews of the latest album from REM, Reveal.

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The Times

There was a blissful, strung-out easiness about Beat a Drum, Summer Turns to High and Beachball, the three most obviously Beach Boys-influenced tracks. I had guessed that Reveal was a grower, but I hadn't thought it would grow much on me. I could tell that it was meticulously written, perfectly played and cleverly produced, but I hadn't expected to enjoy it. But I do. I really do.

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The London Evening Standard

Reveal, REM's first album in nearly three years, is dull, unvaried and one-paced. While there is nothing wrong with the playing or the production (and you wouldn't expect there to be), it is the sound of a band suddenly and worryingly running out of ideas after years of seemingly being able to pluck tuneful gems out of thin air.

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The Independent

There are no half-formed experiments nor slim ideas worked up at soundchecks here, just 12 highly wrought songs with intriguing lyrics (and a lyric sheet, unusually) and tunes whose beauty unfolds slowly over several listens, like flower-heads teased gently open by the sun's rays before bestowing their full glory on the world.

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The Sunday Times

Fortunately for Warner, the band have even supplied the wondrous single Imitation of Life as a rallying cry to lost fans...REM haven't quite filled Berry's shoes yet, but Reveal makes it very clear that his departure was not the mortal wound that Up led us (and, they now admit, the band as well) to think it might be.