Thanks to the avoidance of synthesisers, an emphasis on the jangly guitar of Peter Buck, and backing vocals that at times recall the Beach Boys, REM have a kind of timeless feel, suspended somewhere between the Sixties and the Nineties. There’s a certain garage aesthetic due to avoidance of complex drumming by Bill Berry or guitar soloing from Buck, at times carrying the sound of New Wave sensibilities even if the instrumentation is not typical of the time.
What are the songs about? Who knows half the time. Michael Stipe’s lyrics have a kind of stream of consciousness feel, or maybe like Bowie’s cut-and-paste; they serve as much to hang vocal sounds upon, especially at this stage in the band’s career, and Stipe mumbles throughout such that the lyrics are largely indistinct.
The tracks vary in style, each one being vaguely reminiscent of other works either by REM or other artists. Perfect Circle sounds like the subdued and low-key REM of Automatic For The People. Talk About The Passion meanwhile is a bit more jangly and based on a guitar arpeggio, very like a Byrds track, or the REM of Shiny Happy People. Shaking Through has a country kind of feel, and could have been a Gram Parsons song, while 9-9 has a more contemporary feel and fits in with the New Wave / post-punk likes of Echo And The Bunnymen or Elvis Costello.
Murmur sounds nice overall, but is not, I think, their best album. Since it’s the first full album (not counting EPs), it feels like one of those where the artists are still finding their feet and establishing their sound.
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