REM - Mumur/Reckoning/Fables of the Reconstruction deluxe editions

Sure, R.E.M.'s first five albums have been reissued many, many times over the years – until a renaissance for the Go-Gos or Wall of Voodoo kicks in, they're easily the most marketable thing on the IRS roster – and now that the label's assets belong to Capitol it's to be expected that they would get a dust off, a remaster and a repackage. Then again, said albums are also damn near perfect, both in terms of showing a band at the height of their creative powers and in terms of defining US indie music for the eighties and the decades that followed. These first three are their textbook indie-rock discs, although that familiarity is mainly because so many bands read said textbook from cover to cover.

Murmur () still sounds extraordinary 27 years after its release. Michael Stipe's often-indecipherable vocals provide an element of mystery (perfectly suiting the cover photo of kudzo vine, a weed that covers much of their hometown of Athens, Georgia) to Pete Buck's jangling guitars, Mike Mills' propulsive bass and Bill Berry's uncluttered drumming, with Berry and Mills acting less as "harmony vocalists" as "alternative melodists" – listen to the intertwining vocals drifting around each other on ‘Pilgrimage' for example. Speaking of vocals, those used to Stipe's more declamatory register might be surprised at how restrained he is here: only on the countrified ‘Shaking Through' does he launch into that now-trademark Stipe keen.

It's also got some of the band's straight-out classic songs:‘Radio Free Europe', ‘Talk About The Passion' and ‘Perfect Circle' are still magnificent. The dense (or, less kindly, muddy) production by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon was much-copied in later years, but the remastering does wonders, bringing out subtleties like the slowed-down drum explosions in the background of ‘We Walk' and the twinned piano'n'bass in ‘Pilgrimage'.

It comes packed with a live disc recorded in Toronto which features a fair slab of Murmur, some foreshadowing of albums to come (‘7 Chinese Bros.' and ‘Harborcoat' from Reckoning, ‘Just A Touch' from Lifes Rich Pageant) and a fair whack of debut EP ‘Chronic Town' (actually, would it have killed EMI to include that on here too? No, it would not).

1984's Reckoning () was more representative of the band's live set (much of Murmur hadn't been played rarely, if at all, before recording) and as such was created in more of a rush – Buck has made the cavelier claim that it was recorded in a week, although the truth appears to be just under a month – and there's a uniformity of sound to it that makes it less sonically interesting than its denser predecessor, despite also being produced by Easter and Dixon. Still, the songs are superb (have you listened to‘So. Central Rain' lately? You should) and the more rockin' pace of‘Harborcoat', ‘Second Guessing' and ‘Little America' make it a perfect companion piece to its predecessor.

It's also bundled with a live recording and it's pretty damn good, starting with a gentle version of the Velvets' ‘Femme Fatale' before bursting into ‘Radio Free Europe', but the gems are the wonderfully spirited versions of the then-unreleased ‘Driver 8' and ‘Hyena'. It's not essential by any means, but it's rockin' good fun (and shows how free and easy Stipe plays with his lyrics, especially on ‘Radio Free Europe').

1985's Fables of the Reconstruction () is generally thought of as the "difficult" R.E.M. album, which might explain by they've gone all out on the bonus content: poster, postcards, hard box and probably the most interesting bonus disc, to which we shall return presently. However, returning to the disc reveals that while it's definitely the most varied R.E.M. album to this point (and, arguably, ever), it's anything but inaccessible. It veers wildly from their trademark upbeat jangle-strum (the Reckoning-y ‘Life and How to Live It', ‘Maps & Legends') to the country-folk influence of ‘Wendell Gee', the art-rock ‘Feeling Gravitys Pull' and a couple of barnstorming riff-based tracks in ‘Driver 8' and‘Auctioneer (Another Engine)'. The stalking bassline of ‘Old Man Kensey' foreshadows darker moments like Document's creepy closer 'Oddfellows Local 151', but the real standout – and possibly most anomalous song in the R.E.M. canon – is the cod-Stax soul of ‘Can't Get There From Here'. Producer Joe Boyd's playful sax arrangement lifts the song while Stipe tries his limited best to produce a soul-belter vocal. The band would never attempt its like again, probably wisely, but even so: gentlemen, testify!

The bonus disc is of the Athens-recorded demos for the album and proves that the stories of the band arriving in the UK with no songs is a myth: the entire album is represented here, and in much the same state as the finished product (minus elements like the strings of ‘Feeling Gravitys Pull' and the brass of ‘Can't Get There From Here'), along with a future b-side‘Bandwagon' and Lifes Rich Pageant cut‘Hyena', but obsessives will be most interested in the hitherto-unreleased‘Throw Those Trolls Away' (although those same obsessives will note that the lyrics were cannibalised for the infinitely-superior ...Pageant cut ‘I Believe').

After the (relative) failure of Fables... the band changed tack, teaming up with John Mellancamp's producer Don Gehman for the more conventional Lifes Rich Pageant before 1987's Document, which marked the beginning of their six album relationship with Scott Litt (and the end of their IRS contract before moving to Warners, where they remain to this day) – but that's for another review. In the meantime, enjoy these three excellent albums, artefacts of a time where R.E.M. meant the height of indie rock goodness.

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