Automatic for the People: The Great Beyond

Automatic for the People is sort of notoriously R.E.M.’s death album, the one in the throes of existential wonder. While death does appear throughout the album, it’s more an extended contemplation of mortality and what, if anything, lies beyond this life. “Find the River” suggests nothing. Matt plumbs into The Antler’s gorgeously heart-rending Hospice and the howling pain of Touché Amoré’s Stage Four to see what those have to say about death, mortality, memory, and the Great Beyond.