The walls are built up stone by stone - the fields divided one by one

Continuing my trip across the output of Athens' finest...

Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)

Their third album takes a bit of swerve into, well I'm not entirely sure what but it's never held the appeal of the other three albums out of the first four that I consider to be the "early R.E.M." period (although there's an argument it's five - we'll come back to this).  As I remember it, as a whole it's just a bit too much of a downer - it has some higher points, but as a whole it doesn't feel like they're really making too much effort.  It will be interesting to see whether my opinion changes when I revisit...

Side one - "A Side"

1.Feeling Gravity's Pull
An interesting enough track but unlike the previous two albums, we don't have a grabber to open the album - shame on them!

2. Maps & Legends
Another interesting rather than great track - it's got a reasonable chorus though.

3. Driver 8
This is the first great track on the album for me - it starts jaunty and just gets jauntier.

4. Life And How To Live It
I remembered liking this track but it turns out I don’t particularly do so - it does an interesting chorus though which has an unusual interesting melody and rhythm.

5. Old Man Kensey
OK, but a bit slow for me.

Side two - "Another Side"

1. Cant Get There From Here
It's OK, but it continues their tradition of not opening the second side with the strongest track.

2. Green Grow The Rushes
I quite like this although I don’t know why - it’s got nice “la la la”s in it, so maybe that's it.

3. Kohoutek
This is a bit vague and wishy washy for me - must try harder.

4, Auctioneer
That's more like it - there's a bit more urgency to this one and there's also some nice disharmony to it

5. Good Advices
This is OK as well, but I'd struggle to pick it out of a line-up. 

6. Wendell Gee
Having complained that "Old Man Kensey" was a bit slow this is as slow or maybe slower and I like it - it sounds like it’s telling you a story, but (of course) you have no idea what you’re being told.

It's certainly not such a great set of songs, although I'm not entirely sure what I don't like about them - there are enough good bits scattered through the album but it doesn't really gel for me,  It's definitely a "three track" album - "Driver 8", "Auctioneer" and "Wendell Gee" get the nod from me for the playlist (and I've got no idea what track I'd go for if I had to pick another one).

Wikipedia tells me the album is also know as Reconstruction Of The Fables - they're very tricksy with their titles, aren't they?  It also tells me that a lot of the album is based around the Deep South - but was recorded in London with Joe Boyd as producer.  Joe is best known for working with folk performers including Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson and Nick Drake although I'm guessing R.E.M. were most interested in his work with The Incredible String Band - and I can totally see the similar contrary vibe but for me there's also significant differences - R.E.M. really wanted to be successful (although I'm not saying they were happy once they got there).  I also learned that Kohoutek is a comet - and obviously that track is one of R.E.M.'s first love songs.

Interestingly, there's no section on critical views (although the sidebar suggests they were nice enough about it) - but there is a section on the band's views.  It seems like they weren't big fans back in the day but have since claimed it's a totally cool album and they love it - controversially I'm going to suggest that's because they listened to some of their later albums.  Wikipedia also claims that this album points to the way they were going to go on their later albums - a tiny part of me can see this argument, but I'm afraid most of me goes "no, this is bollocks".  Because it is.  They did start to get some commercial success though - it had a three week run in '85 in the UK reaching #35 (and then came back for another two weeks in '95) and got to #28 in the US.

For me, this is an interesting listen but no more than that - I can't really explain its lack of appeal for me but I'll be quite surprised if I ever listen to it again because here are just so many other R.E.M. albums that I prefer to spend my time with.

Reckoning - A finer follow-up
Lifes Rich Pageant - A fine return to form