R.E.M.’s greatest album (in my opinion).

Fables of the Reconstruction, R.E.M.`s third album has sometimes been deemed as a weaker effort, but the tone and atmosphere of the whole thing seems to go beyond the individual songs to create something that is akin to a painting or a picture. It’s rustic. Weathered. Sorrowful. Lonely. Longing. It is the wooden fences that have slowly rotted with age. It is the sun setting over empty fields. Rarely does music allow you to feel things in a tactile way. Of course music should evoke feelings in the heart…but they don’t transport us to places and times and environments the way this album does.