Originally released on June 10, 1985, Fables Of The Reconstruction is R.E.M.’s third studio album and features such classics as Driver 8, Can’t Get There From Here, and Life And How To Live It. Now faithfully restored and available on LP. Fables completes the IRS years catalog that is now available on physical formats.
 
It may be a cliché to suggest that the world’s greatest rock bands need to traverse their “difficult third album,” yet over the years, that’s a tag that has frequently been attached to R.E.M.’s Fables Of The Reconstruction.
 
Peter Buck acknowledged this fact in his sleevenotes for the album’s 25th-anniversary deluxe edition, released in 2010, when he wrote: “Over the years, a certain misapprehension about Fables Of The Reconstruction has built up. For some reason, people have the impression that the members of R.E.M. don’t like the record. Nothing could be further from the truth… It’s a personal favorite and I’m really proud of how strange it is. Nobody but R.E.M. could have made that record.”