Drink the Sea – The Button Factory – Live Review – 14/12/25

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Interview with John Hunter – Writer of Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M. – Part 2

 Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Interview with John Hunter – Writer of Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M. – Part 1

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Mark Eitzel - West

For Mark Eitzel's second solo album, released in 1997, he teamed up with REM's Peter Buck.  Both artists were riding high at the time, in their own particular way, having come through an imperious decade from the late 80s through to the mid 90s.  The album opens promisingly with what turns out to be it's best track, If You Have To Ask.  Dominated by strings, it features a really strong vocal by Eitzel and a clever lyric about lighting "a fire in your brain".  It's a really lush arrangement, and it suits Eitzel down to the ground, it's one of the finer songs in his solo work.  After that, we come (relatively) down to earth.  Songs like Free of Harm, Stunned and Frozen, and In Your Life are fairly straightforward, sub-REM pop-rock songs with bright guitar lines and catchy, repeated choruses.  Mark Eitzel will surely never sing a simpler chorus than "I live in your life".  The moodier side is well represented here too on Helium, Then It Really Happens and the almost apologetic Lower Eastside Tourist, any of which you could nearly imagine Michael Stipe singing.  Which is kind of the problem with this album: it's not distinctive enough, not Eitzel enough.

Chirpier moments like Three Inches of Wall and Move Myself Ahead don't suit Eitzel that well, and even when he wallows, on Old Photographs and Live or Die it seems simplistic.  The chorus of the latter is flat and obvious ("no-one cares if I live or die").

It's one album in Mark Eitzel's back catalogue that you could pop on in the background and it wouldn't really upset anyone.  Which isn't really the point with Eitzel.

Uncle Tupelo - March 16-20, 1992

For Uncle Tupelo's third album, released in 1992 at the height of heavy grunge, the band kept largely to acoustic folk.  This collection of originals mixed with traditional American songs sounds almost timeless.  Early on, a grim reading of Coalminers rubs shoulders with Jeff Tweedy's jauntier Wait Up.  Jay Farrar's contributions are generally strong - the brief Criminals is an early highlight, a bitter strum of being "criminals looking for something to do", while Shaky Ground has echoes of REM (not surprising as Peter Buck produced).  Tweedy's no slouch here either, Black Eye lays the groundwork for Richmond Fontaine's more stripped down material.  By contrast, versions of Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down, Moonshiner and Atomic Power are a little too close to folk pastiche for comfort.  Although a whole album of this can get a bit repetitive, the original material here saves the day.  Towards the end, Fatal Wound is a gorgeous, laid back going-nowhere ballad with a fine steel guitar part.  Overall, the country feel to the album might seem off-putting at first but the quality of the songs grows on repeated listening.

REM: Out of Time?

Article for www.meg.ie

Album Review: REM – Green

REM continued their graduation from jangly indie band to alternative rock gods with 1988’s Green. The album opens with the upbeat Pop Song 89 which takes a clever riff and some seemingly disparate parts and moulds them into one song. Get Up is similarly upbeat before You Are The Everything, a gorgeous song leaning heavily on Peter Buck’s mandolin and a strong vocal from Michael Stipe. The mandolin comes out again later on the album with The Wrong Child and Hairshirt.

Of course at this stage REM were becoming adept at writing insanely catchy songs. On this album we get 2: the slightly cheesy Stand and fine rock anthem Orange Crush. They also laid the ground for what would come afterwards with the midtempo and less well known World Leader Pretend, aided and abetted by some memorable cello and steel guitar parts and a chorus of intent: “I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down”. Turn You Inside Out is another fine rocker and penultimate track I Remember California has a darker tone to it.

It’s hard to imagine now how rare this sort of stuff was in 1988. While it’s probably nobody’s favourite REM album, it’s one of their better ones.

Album Review: REM – Fables of the Reconstruction

REM’s third album, originally released in 1985 never received great reviews, and as far as I know is not a fan favourite. It’s not the most alluring of albums, they changed the sound which had worked so well on Murmur and Reckoning and moved to England to record it with Joe Boyd. Replacing the bright sound of its predecessors with a strange kind of lethargic murk, for those familiar with later REM this is a curious beast. The album doesn’t really care whether you like it or not, not like the likes of The One I Love, or even the Out of Time album, specifically Losing My Religion which reaches out and gives you a great big vice-like hug.

Anyway, opener Feeling Gravity’s Pull certainly doesn’t want to hug you, starting with a dischordant guitar which leads into some strings, giving the song a foreboding air. The Peter Buck jangly charm is still here, just overlaid by other things going on. Michael Stipe’s lyrics are as impenetrable as ever, making this a ‘grower’ of an album rather than an instant one. Even hearing it now, it’s quite a jarring first track. Maps and Legends is fairly direct, with a relatively simple chord progression and a great vocal performance.

Driver 8 is faster, with an almost country influence on Stipe’s vocals in the upbeat chorus. It’s one of the faster REM songs in a mostly midtempo catalogue, and certainly one of the most propulsive things her on a mostly blissfully downbeat album. Tracks like Old Man Kensey, Green Grow the Rushes and Good Advices are very pretty, in a looking down at your feet kind of way (as advised by Good Advices: “when you meet a stranger look at his shoes”).

There are faint influences of the Durutti Column on this album (Life and How to Live It) and some rather unfortunate brass-funk (Can’t Get There From Here), but on the whole it’s an enjoyable album.

Ideal circumstances to listen: Walking through a dense forested area on a dry, humid Thursday in September.