By DAVE BRUSIE
Staff Writer
 

Unlike REM's past two outings, Up's ballads outweigh its rockers, which is hardly a bad thing. In fact, the album is almost exclusively consisting of slow songs, with the exception of the Beck-like "Lotus" in the beginning of the disc. The music of REM continues to reach into further depths, with songs like "At My Most Beautiful" and "Sad Professor", which come across as miniature epics, both being moving and melodically vast. "Beautiful" rings with bells, pianos and Beach Boys-inspired harmonies, while "Sad Professor" is a simple and emotional downer. It's a pretty downer nonetheless, piercing with lines like "Everyone hates a sad professor, I hate where I wound up."

Lyrics are a prominent part of Up's quiet charm. Frontman Michael Stipe remains one of rock's leading cryptics, but his are words that perfectly fit the mood of the songs. This aspect of his writing is an ongoing feature of Stipe-- murkiness, but murkiness that matches the music it is made to exemplify.

One thing that he has changed, however, is the accessibility of the Iyrics. This is not only the first album without Berry, but it's also the first (out of seventeen preceding it) whose liner notes provide the Iyrics. This is a milestone for millions of loyal fans who have spent the past two decades with their ears to the speakers, straining to understand Stipe's mumbles. (Don't expect this to be of great help, however. Just because one can see lines like "I'll be pounce pony, phony maroney"--a charmer from "Falls to Climb"--there's no guarantee that their meaning will be any clearer.)

Other highlights are balanced and impressive, ranging from the hiphop overtones of "Lotus" to the quiet courtroom confessions of "Diminished." "Daysleeper," the album's first single, contains one of the few traces of catchiness on the disc. It would fit perfectly, in fact, on Automatic for the People, the band's breakthrough album which contained

mostly direct, acoustic songs. While "Daysleeper," with its monologue coming from a night-working mailroom employee, stands alone in its catchiness, it provides necessary contrast to other melodies which don't feel as poppy.

It's in this sense of balance that Up is at its most impressive. Emotions come from different spectrums and narrators from different realms, but the unifying sense of the songs stays constant. The new REM has therefore created a work to silence the naysayers. While Berry will be missed, his substitutes (various drum machines and Joey Waronker, Beck's drummer) have contributed to a musically expansive landscape. Up is a portrait of a band still in search of originality, and surprisingly finding it at each attempt. Stark, sad and symmetrical, Up is both refreshing and gratifying.