Peter Gabriel: Up

The best R.E.M. album since Automatic For The People, Up establishes a mood of hope-tinged, disillusioned introspection with its first track, and doesn't stop moving from there. Opening with the most artificial-sounding drum beat this side of The Pet Shop Boys—a probable nod to the much-publicized departure of longtime drummer Bill Berry—"Airportman" creates a washed-out, day-after sound that becomes the emotional ground zero for all that follows. Up is one of the most unified works of the group's career, even if it's as much a departure from what came before as anything R.E.M. has done. With its looped beats and repetitive, low-volume guitar noise, the Leonard Cohen-derived "Hope" is worlds apart from the jangly tunefulness that long ago became the group's signature sound. But it's every bit as good. The same can be said for Up as a whole, and part of what holds it together is the group's unerring ability, here at least, to take whatever it chooses to experiment with—be it the aforementioned looped drums or lines like, "a lazy eye metaphor on the rocks"—and turn it into memorable music. A number of songs leap out immediately, like the melancholy pop of "Walk Unafraid," "Daysleeper," and the Pet Sounds-like "At My Most Beautiful," a future staple of proms, weddings, and other social gatherings. But Up's real accomplishment is what it achieves as a whole, balancing those obvious high points with delicate melodies like "Suspicion," "The Apologist," and "Why Not Smile." R.E.M. could have fallen apart with Berry's departure and the hushed reception to 1996's New Adventures In Hi-Fi; instead, the band has returned with a sublimely memorable album.