To those griping that R.E.M.'s new release "Up" doesn't sound like R.E.M., I offer "Wide Swing Tremolo" from Son Volt. The opening track, "Straightface" could've been a single from the "Monster" album for three reasons. The shimmying fuzz guitar, the synthesized effects on the vocals, and the high level of pure pop-ness, the likes of which Jay Farrar has never even striven for in the past. I have a theory:

Son Volt's last album, "Staightaways" was a dour, dark, moody, Steinbeckian collection of songs. It sold poorly. You gotta figure someone in the Warner Brothers camp took Farrar out lunch and said, "Hey, Jay, can we pick it up a notch?" After the brisk sales of Son Volt's first album "Trace," and the built in publicity every time former Uncle Tupelo coconspirator Jeff Tweedy releases an album with his band Wilco or side project Golden Smog or appears on a tribute or benefit album (which seems like every other week), you gotta figure there's a lot of money riding on a major Son Volt release. This new one has a lot of pop.

I've managed to divorce R.E.M. from my analysis of this new 90's genre called alt.country (or Americana or Y'Allternative). While I have refuted the romantic notion that this genre spontaneously generated in 1990 with Uncle Tupelo's release of "No Depression" by pointing out the Rolling Stones' work in 1968-1972 (specifically, songs like "Sweet Virginia," "Country Honk," "Salt of the Earth," "Torn and Frayed," "You Got The Move" and so on and so forth), I never brought R.E.M. into the picture. For two reasons.

One, it is very difficult for me to think of R.E.M. as anything other than the pop supergroup they are now; visual images often include a VH-1 logo in the bottom right hand corner. This is a comment more on current music marketing than on anything else.

Two, most of us, I'm sure, think of R.E.M.'s early work as a reaction to what was happening in pop and new wave, music made in a parent's garage, not a bar, the odd cover of "Kings of the Road" not withstanding. Alt.country is the blending of country (both in idiom and instrumentation) and hard guitar rock.

So why do I keep picturing Michael Stipe?

There's "Straightface," referenced above, a dead ringer for any of the "Monster" hits.

"Dead Man's Clothes" is straight out of "Time After Time" from "Reckoning" (and Steven Malkmus' least favorite song.)

The melody in "Question" really reminds me of "Life And How To Live It" from "Fables Of The Reconstruction"

"Medicine Hat" does not remind me of R.E.M. musically, but really takes a page from Stipe's book lyrically. Like some of the most memorable R.E.M. songs ("Fall On Me", "It's The End Of The World As We Know It . . ."), "Medicine Hat" is an assemblage of buzzy phrases, making only tangential connections with one another, prefaced only by "There will be" like some strange pop prophet. Examples, "There will be teachers who die by their own hand . . . There will be droughts and days inundated . . . There will be machinations unforeseen . . . There will be catchwords filled with infection . . . etc."

It's a deeply moving song, not particularly "country" save for a few bars on a steel guitar. It is pop songwriting reminiscent not only of R.E.M., but of David Byrne ("The Big Country," "Once In A Lifetime" or "In The Future" from the "Knee Plays" soundtrack) and Van Morrison ("Days Like This").

In addition to this kinship with R.E.M.'s past, there are instrumental expansions on this album. Use of dulcimer, flute, some strings, more piano, a tune called "Blind Hope" with a near Curtis Mayfield bass riff and Mike Rathke-type guitar, as well as the above mentioned fuzz guitar. And there are more traditional Son Volt tunes, like "Strands," "Flow" and especially "Carry You Down" which sounds like it was lifted from Harry Smith's Anthology.

All in all, though, the key with Son Volt has always been to sing through your nose, a feature making "Wide Swing Tremolo" one of the more exciting releases in a while.