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Reckoning
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Performer Notes
  • R.E.M.: Michael Stipe (vocals); Mike Mills (vocals, bass); Bill Berry (vocals, drums); Peter Buck (guitar).
  • Recorded at Reflection Sound, Charlotte, North Carolina.
  • Personnel: Bill Berry (vocals, drums, percussion); Michael Stipe , Mike Mills (vocals); Peter Buck (guitar).
  • Audio Mixer: Mitch Easter.
  • Recording information: Reflection Sound Studios, Charlotte, NC (12/08/1983-01/16/1984).
  • Photographers: Ed Colver; Mike Cameron.
  • Unknown Contributor Role: Howard Finster.
  • The murmuring continued with this, R.E.M.'s second album, recorded in only two weeks, and yet critical acclaim and a growing fanbase had not made the music any less elusive. From the cover depiction of a winding river/snake, the jangly music within was similarly ambiguous, drenched in alternately murky, then dazzlingly clear, images. The water theme predominates throughout side one's five-song suite, with talk of harbours, oceans and water towers, crowned by the sublime lament of "So. Central Rain." Later, the melancholic eulogy of "Camera" sits comfortably beside the cod-country of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" and the brisk but disillusioned tour around "Little America." An astonishingly assured and uncommercial half-sibling to MURMUR: file under water.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.77) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he powerful RECKONING established the band as bona fide leaders of the new American indie-rock underground."

Spin (p.91) - "[T]he songs betrayed a folk-country influence -- the Byrds, in particular -- resulting in an album refreshingly out of fashion for 1984."

Spin (12/03, p.122) - "...RECKONING gets over on straight-up songcraft..."

CMJ (1/6/03, p.14) - Included in CMJ's list of "Top 25 College Radio Albums of All Time"

CMJ (1/5/04, p.14) - Ranked #1 in CMJ's "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1984".

Q (Magazine) (p.118) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he jangle and crunch of Buck's Rickenbacker brooked no confusion; here were the seeds of every baroque experiment with mandolins and balalaikas that lay ahead..."

Blender (Magazine) (p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "RECKONING aims for the gut with roundhouse drumming, sunburst guitars, Podunk country ballads...and just enough poetic vagueness..."

Pitchfork (Website) - "[I]t is host to a kind of determined minimalism, each song building via subtle variations in performance and instrumentation."

Record Collector (magazine) (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "RECKONING remains a highpoint in REM's first chapter of existence. 'Central Rain' sounds like a lost soul classic..."

Uncut (magazine) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "RECKONING, remarkably, deepened the band's mythology, projecting a kind of existential restlessness wrapped in webs of gorgeous guitar arpeggio and interweaving vocal textures."
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