I've never been a 'fan' of R.E.M. By fan I mean fan enough to purchase one of their albums. I liked their singles, but I've not really spent enough time listening to them to really start to enjoy them. And for some reason I've all but been ignoring the pleases of my R.E.M. obsessed friend to just sit and understand. But 'Reveal' finally caught my attention. The single/video 'Imitation Of Life' is amazingly simple and catchy, as all good R.E.M. is. The album itself is filled with 'Kid A'esque blips and blobs but they're subtle and add colour. This is production, not electronic music. It's one of the few albums I've picked up and really enjoyed the first 8 or so tracks off the bat, but I've got to say by track ten I get bored. I'm assuming for the moment that the last three or so tracks just arn't as good but maybe I'm not cut out to listen to a full album of R.E.M. I've just bought 'Automatic for the People' so we'll see.