Agree across the board. I don’t know if rating this album poorly is so unfair. I look at it as more of an important part of their journey even if it didn’t entirely “work”. I didn’t think it was bad, I just thought it was a good honest try that just missed. And coming on the heels of one of the biggest surprises of the 90s in “Automatic” it was difficult not to be a disappointed with Monster. I recall “Automatic” was released within a year of Out of Time and frankly I thought it was some kind of B-side release. But man did that album just grow and grow on me. “Night Swimming” is easily one of my favorite REM tunes of all time.