Hot on the heels of Murmur, a debut album which arguably reinvented indie rock for the 1980s, R.E.M.’s second album Reckoning was a far more instant proposition and, 25 years on, still sounds as determined and focussed as ever. Recorded live over two weeks, the album takes Murmur’s air of Southern Gothic impenetrability and somehow manages to make somehow it less distinct but more user-friendly. Sure, Michael Stipe’s lyrics remain as captivating as they are oblique (“There’s a splinter in your eye, and it reads ‘R-E-A-C-T’”), but the vocals are pushed further up in the mix, highlighting their dense collision of characters, anecdotes and non-sequiturs. This long-overdue remaster cleans up the album’s once-muddy sound, making it an even more satisfying and immediate listen, as well as a couple of amusing (though disposable) between-song interludes, and comes armed with a previously-unreleased recording of a live set from the Little America tour which marked the album’s release.With a tommy gun drumroll, “Harborcoat” kicks Reckoning into life with twice the energy of the band’s debut. The track rides on a borderline disco beat and some typically nimble basswork from Mike Mills, while its unique chorus features the band’s three vocalists (Stipe, Mills drummer Bill Berry) singing against each other in some kind of compelling antiharmony. After that supercharged opener, the album then boasts some of the band’s most notable early singles; forging a unique connection between folk and post punk, “7 Chinese Bros.”’s skeletal riff and stabbing piano chords should still send shivers up any spine, while Mike Mills’ lovesick country jaunt “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” hints at the kind of gloriously throwaway material, such as “Get Up” or “Shiny Happy People”, that the band would become begrudgingly famous for. The rest of the album falls into two camps ”“ spry rockers and dark balladry; Peter Buck’s descending Rickenbacker sparkle that makes up “Pretty Persuasion”’s glorious intro is one of the most exciting moments here. Meanwhile, kinetic closer “Little America” begins with one of the band’s most arresting lines ”“ “I can’t see myself at thirty” ”“ and descends into a Kerouac-esque tour diary (“Jefferson, I think we’re lost!”), by way of a restless counterblast to the listless Reaganite consumer culture (“Another Greenville, another Magic Mart...”).Reckoning’s two ballads, meanwhile, may just rank as the best things here. The almost Appalachian “Time After Time (annElise)”, notorious for being Stephen Malkmus’s least favourite song!, is typically elliptical; it’s too strident to be considered delicate (and those drums are just too damn big), and far too hushed to be an anthem (in spite of the cheeky chants of “HEY! HEY! HEY!” buried deep in the mix), but stands as a true hidden gem in the band’s vast catalogue. “Camera”, meanwhile, builds on the stately “Talk About the Passion” to become the album’s absolute heart and soul; an elegy for a lost friend ”“ Stipe allegedly had trouble keeping his emotions in check while recording his vocals ”“ the song sounds fittingly funereal, with a church organ droning its way through the background. Their most assured ballad up to that point, there isn’t a single wasted syllable or note; “Camera” works perfectly as one five-minute summary of R.E.M.’s astonishing dynamic; as Stipe sings “I still like you. Do you remember?” into the abyss with an almost unbearably detached tone of mourning, the group unveils its chorus for a final time, cementing the song as one of the most revelatory moments of their entire career.The bonus live CD, a recording of a 1984 Chicago show, opens with a jawdropping rendition of The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale” complete with a vocal which, by early Stipe standards at least, is bursting with raw, uncomplicated emotion. Charging headlong into a fiery rendition of “Radio Free Europe”, the disc highlights how remarkably tight and versatile R.E.M. were in concert, right down to their signature complex harmonies; from the call-and-response garage rockisms of b-side “Windout” to a tentative run through the always-astonishing “Driver 8” ”“ which is wheeled out to disarmingly muted applause (then again, it was released a year later...), it’s an exemplary display. Stipe’s tourettes and pirouettes his wild way across the tracks, while the rest of the band somehow managing to keep everything in check behind him.Reckoning remains one of the band’s most defining albums, and certainly its most concise; within ten songs, the band managed to encapsulate exactly where they’d been, where they were, and tries to give a glimpse at where they were headed. Not that they counted on that place being rainy Wood Green, North London, where they recorded their fabled next record, due to be reissued in time for its 25th anniversary next year; still, until that day comes, there’s always time (after time) to revel in Reckoning’s direct, unreconstructed pleasures. 100%R.E.M. on MySpace