R.E.M.’s 2001 album Reveal will be reissued in November for its 25th anniversary.
The band’s 12th studio album spawned two hits in the UK, including the top 10 single ‘Imitation of Life’ and ‘All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star)’. The band’s commercial fortunes remained in decline in the US where ‘Imitation of Life’ stalled at No 83.
Despite both singles offering demos, alternate versions of album tracks, live cuts and non-album B-sides (‘2JN’, ‘Yellow River’, ‘165 Hillcrest’) none of these are included on any format of the anniversary reissue, with bonus audio content reserved solely for “The Black Sessions Revealed”, a 2001 concert recorded for Radio France.
The formats are 2CD+blu-ray and 2LP vinyl of “The Black Sessions Revealed”. The album is also available on vinyl although availability seems limited (at least for now). The official R.E.M. store also has exclusive coloured vinyl versions of both. There is no word on remastering, which suggests the album hasn’t been remastered.
The 2CD+blu-ray edition features the album on CD 1, “The Black Sessions Revealed” on CD 2 and a blu-ray which includes the album in 5.1 Surround and hi-res stereo. Presumably these are the same mixes that were put out 21 years ago on the CD+DVD-A reissue.
Live track taken from “The Black Sessions Revealed”, a previously unreleased 17-song performance recorded for Radio France in Paris on May 7, 2001! The collection is being released in conjunction with the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of the band’s studio album “Reveal”.
The lack of Dolby Atmos needs to be commented upon. Back in 2017, “Automatic For The People” was only the second pop/rock album to be released physically in Dolby Atmos (INXS’ Kick being the first). R.E.M. were pioneers of sorts, and looked to be setting the bar for the emerging spatial audio scene. Or so we thought. They quickly abandoned Atmos for the 2019 “Monster” reissue (despite the stereo version getting a remix) and have not created Atmos Mixes of any of their albums as the subsequent reissues have been chalked off (“New Adventures in Hi-Fi”, “Up” and now “Reveal“).
Ignoring non-album material from singles already marks this reissue out as imperfect, but not bothering to embrace modern immersive audio and just trotting out a 21-year old 5.1 mix (admittedly, a good mix) does not cut the mustard. It’s not the end of the world as we know it, but it’s disappointing.
“Reveal” will be released on 20th November 2026 via Concord.
