New Adventures' album cover looks like a view of a desert/ the country as seen from a car or bus and features a typewriter-like font. The back cover shows a bird eye view of a landscape of isolated motorways leading to small towns and, further on, perhaps cities. This album was written and recorded on the road during the Monster tour, with some songs later recorded in studios. Overall, it has the acoustic, country feel of parts of Out Of Time and Automatic for the people, coupled with 70s Monster-like guitar-work. In parts it can feel more genuinely enthusiastic than the studied cool of Monster. `New Adventures in Hi-Fi' is an almalgamation of much that they have done since Document, with some experimentation, such as `Leave', given the feel of a live record.
`How the west was won and where it got us' is, like `Drive' and `Airportman', one of REM's quieter opening songs. Unlike those last two songs, the song has verses and a chorus. It features a despondent piano interlude like the regretful musings of a jazz player in a saloon. Throughout is a beautiful, moody tune, which instantly conjures up an image of desert country. Whereas Monster concentrated on distorted vocals and personas, the main distortion here is through the passage of time and the glint of a whisky glass (`just add water stir in lime'). There is the first reference to astronomy and wide open space in general on this song, that will crop up on other songs: `I cracked through time/space, godless and dry. I point my nose to the northern star, and watch the decline from a hazy distance.' Whether intended or not, the comparison could be made between a rock or film star's decline to watching a shooting star fade in the sky. It could be the singer who is feeling hazy.
`The Wake Up Bomb' sounds like Michael Stipe revelling in being a rock star, although whether that's the `anywhere' that he'd `rather be doing anything' at is the question. References to a sense of space and bombing- `I scud along the horizon', `attitude latitude'. The language is of the space-age (`atomic' and `supersonic').
`New Test Leper' features one of REM's most compelling pieces of instrumentation, sounding like a 1960s acoustic country meditation, complimented by the guitar work elsewhere. Like `What's the frequency, Kenneth?', it features a comment on the media.
`Undertow' captures a feel of dark, misty, windy, marshlands, with strange feedback, clanging wind chimes and downbeat verses. This is contrasted by Mike Mill's harmonies and the warmth of Michael Stipe's voice on the chorus, dragging out the word `me' to good effect, as was done so well on Out of Time's `Me in honey'. Towards the end, song becomes a fully fledged rock song, which epitomises the shifts within many of the songs on this album. Like `New Test Leper',`Undertow' it touches on religion. `Undertow' suggests that we shouldn't rely on it's role to save, instead opting for a belief in a more simple relationship with Earth.
`E-bow the letter' features Patti Smith becoming particularly soulful at the end of the song, in a way reminding me of Kate Person on `Me in Honey'. This song might sound like the mournful aspect of Automatic for the people, but it is probably most similar to Out Of Time's Country Feedback. At one point, Michael Stipe says `This star thing, I don't get it.' Although he could mean being a film/rock star, I also think of the star-shaped sculpture on the front of Automatic for the People. He talks about fame, as a 50s film teen icon, or a 70s glam rock star (`Maybelline eyes and girl-as-boy moves'), which shows that this album is not a million miles away from Monster in part. `Fluorescent and starry' could suggest the neon lights of Tinseltown, or of adverts and signs, the kind that you would see on the side of country motorways. The back cover of the album shows a town or city lit up at night. Chemistry is one theme running throughout the song- (`Aluminium tastes like fear' ('tinfoil tiaras' is also mentioned) and `These corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet'.) By the way, the lyrics are `Adrenaline, it pulls us near' (unfortunately not `Adrenaline, Princess Leah' which would have tied in with the 1970s and astronomy themes in the album).
`Leave', after the initial change from mellow guitar-work to recurring car alarm is interspersed with some unusual electronic effects and guitar-work. The lyrics seem to feature a contradiction between wanting to be grounded and wanting to fly. The sparse lyrics and reference to the land touching the sea are reminiscent of Out of Time's `Belong'.
`Departure' is a short, sharp 3 minute pop/rock song. It's slightly reminiscent of 'Strange' off Document. It features irresistable guitar-work and lots of cymbal and drum bashing on the end. Each line sounds like it said with equal parts enthusiasm and weariness. eg `I've come a long way since, uh, whatever' and the great `Go go go yeah' part.
'Bittersweet Me' is slightly less compelling by comparison to me, because it's one of REM's building romantic songs that aren't really romantic. It starts off with an introduction like a soap opera theme, moves into Stipe running through relationship problems, with a few classic REM jingle jangles in the background, then comes the building chorus, like Reveal's I'll take the rain. The guitar work and Mills' interjections greatly vitalise the song. In the first verse Stipe describes being like a shooting star. REM's next two albums would make references to astronomy as well. There is also a verse that could have belonged on Monster, about the nature of image- `Your veneer is wearing thin and cracking, The surface informs that underneath, Underneath is lacking.'
`Be Mine' mines a romantic angle like the previous song, the lyrics mimic some of the teen language of Monster. The title of the song could also hark back to that album's songs on obsessive relationships. As the song moves on to a searing end, with a sense of love conquering distance, this song have become (maybe it is) the love song that you either love or hate, and it can seem to have a repetitive, droning nature but it's worth listening to thanks to the guitar-work.
`Binky the doormat', with its quirky riff, strange lyrics and fuzzy sound is thematically most similar to the songs on Monster, even more than `The Wake Up Bomb'. `This is horror movie stuff', the first line, conjures up the darkly playful imagery prevalent on the previous album. Another circus reference here: `I will fake a little frown, I will be your little clown' harks back to Circus Envy and Monster's part concentration on personas and image. There is great backing from Mike Mills again, repeatedly uttering `Go away'.
`Zither' is a slow, repeating instrumentation that serves to put the country back in the album and act as an interlude. Just like 'New Orleans Instrumentation No 5', I'm afraid that I rarely listen to it.
`So fast so numb' features rapid opening drum-work, piano work, ghostly Monster-like harmonies and some acoustic guitar strumming.
When Micheal Stipe said that 'Low desert' was one of his favourite songs on thee album, I didn't really agree as it was quite low-key compared to much of the rest of the album and unlike anything that I have heard R.E.M . do before. However, in retrospect, by not seeming to try too hard, this song is possibly one of the coolest things R.E.M have ever done, in an 80s sleepy town/petrol station kind of way. It just conjures up an image of a cowboy chewing on a piece of gum.
`Electrolite', features the lyric `Twentieth century go to sleep' and it's partly a love song to the age of the car and the electric age (especially 50s Hollywood iconography). The song appropriately featuring an electric piano, a violin and wistful harmonies. The song is another example of New Adventures in Hi-Fi's partial similarity to Automatic for the people, being reminiscent of the last two songs on Automatic, Nightswimming and Find the river. Like `Monty got a raw deal', it also mentions specific stars `I'm Martin Sheen, I'm Steve McQueen, I'm Jimmy Dean', that you can feel like them simply by being in Hollywood.
Overall, I think that this album is worth 4 stars, though that is possibly only down to undue nit-picking by me and only by comparison to 'Out Of Time' rather than to other bands. I definitely prefer this album as a whole rather than 'Automatic for the people'. The album has clearly been made by a 5 star band in 5 star form with a compelling mix of country-like songs and Monster album rock. Although there are individual songs on here that I listen to more than most of 'Out Of Time', (eg. New Test Leper, Undertow, Departure and Binky the doormat), there is unmatched variety and there is little of the sentimentality of 'Automatic for the people' on 'New Adventures in Hi-fi', 'Out of Time' has unarguable 5 star songs throughout. As a document of the experience of playing folk polp/rock to vast crows in a vast country and maaking it both nostalgic and exciting outside of the 1970s, New Adventures in Hi-Fi is 5 star.
