R.E.M. skirted the issue briefly. "A three-legged dog is still a dog," was the Stipean quote of the hour. Then work on Up sommenced and we were told to await the arrival of R.E.M.'s crack at an Eno/Krautrock-infused world of burbling synths and machine-derived percussion presided over by guitarist/record rat Peter Buck. Adjectives like "weird and glacial" were tossed around. The situation sound familiar? Try the drummerless Smashing Pumpkins a year earlier. You don't find yourself spinning Adore much these days, do you?

Up does open strongly, with three of the first four songs utilizing the vintage-electronica approach well. "Airportman" opens the record Casio-pretty and "Hope" marries a bracing, R.E.M.-on-the-Autobahn synth construction with Michael Stipe's trademark imploring vocal, droning on to an impressive electric meltdown at the end. Track 3, "Suspicion," is the jewel, a long, atmospheric, slow-burner that speaks of filmic espionage on the ski slopes.

Which leaves 11 whole tracks that pretty much play like a protracted sigh: achingly slow, undistinguished moaners that sound like undrecooked Automatic For The People/Monster leftovers. "Lotus" is the oddball, a sleazy, loose-booty rocker that is just fine but not in this context. "At My Most Beautiful" is another head-scratcher -- a Pet Sounds pastiche that presumes to pay tribute by creating a half-assed facsimile. The drums rumble similarly, the piano chimes, and Mike Mills does his best with the harmonies, but ... why? For a B-side perhaps, but certainly not a featured track on a proper album.

Michael Stipe, who has to be in high gear for an R.E.M. album to work, sounds utterly lost. Largely stripped of the enigma that bolstered him through R.E.M.'s swiftly jangling years, he's a sore thumb, a drunk uncle. His poetry is above average and his burnished scrub-brush voice is still among the most unique and recognizible in rock, but the shorn one's performances on Up seem completely uninspired amid Buck and Mills' heavy- handed backing. Unsure of what emotion to convey or melody to sing, he simply sounds like Stipe. Rewind to "The Wake-Up Bomb" (from the group's previous, the underrated, rocking New Adventures In Hi-Fi) and it's obvious the man still has it, buit he's a lonely animal among vegetables here.

That the band canceled the tour they'd originally planned to coincide with Up is telling. What to do with it? The album doesn't really hold up as a change in direction, a bandwagon jumper, a grower, an experiment, a tour of styles, or any other designation you can throw at it. It's just there, more R.E.M. for the pile. I wouldn't be shocked to see the Athens vets turn it around next time (they rebounded from Monster, after all), but at the same time, Bill Berry may have had the right idea.

--Lane Hewitt