There’s a ‘before and after’ Out Of Time in the life of R.E.M. This ‘before’ for Michael Stipe’s band is mainly found on university campuses where the group gained a cult following in the ‘80s… How then did R.E.M. manage to sell 12 million copies of Out Of Time to the world? The answer is that this record was both sublime and austere. An uncompromising album, like the chamber rock such as Nirvana and the Pixies that you’d blast out without caring about pissing off the neighbours in that year of 1992… Always virtuosic, Peter Buck goes from the mandolin to the acoustic guitar with great ease, John Paul Johns from Led Zeppelin sublimely arranges refined chords and Michael Stipe shines with his melancholic and tortured prose with the candor of a man with self-assured belief. Cinemascope ballads prevail, peaking with Everybody Hurts. It must be said, Automatic For The People is not the most easy-flowing album by R.E.M. but it is one of the most beautiful. Released in 2017, this 25th anniversary edition also offers, alongside the remastered album, a live recording from the 40 Watt Club in Athens on the 19th November 1992 with some cover versions like Funtime by Iggy Pop and Love Is All Around by The Troggs. © MD/Qobuz