R.E.M. are set to reissue their 1982 debut EP ‘Chronic Town’ in August to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The band’s first EP featured five songs – ‘Wolves, Lower’, ‘Gardening At Night’, ‘Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)’, ‘1,000,000’ and ‘Stumble’ – and was originally released on August 24, 1982 as the follow-up to their 1981 debut single ‘Radio Free Europe’.

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R.E.M. will now reissue ‘Chronic Town’ as a CD, picture disc and cassette on August 19 via I.R.S./UMe.

It will be the first time that the record will be available to buy as a standalone CD, which will feature extensive liner notes by the original producer Mitch Easter.

“Introducing their arpeggiated guitar playing, cryptic and often indecipherable lyrics, and radiant choruses that would soon emerge as signatures of the classic R.E.M. sound, ‘Chronic Town’ is the sound of a restless band, chock full of ideas, operating on a post-collegiate budget,” a press release about the EP states.

“Charmingly ragged and refreshingly immediate, it established the band indelibly upon impact.”

You can see the tracklist for R.E.M.’s ‘Chronic Town’ reissue below and pre-order the record here.

1. ‘Wolves, Lower’
2. ‘Gardening At Night’
3. ‘Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)’
4. ‘1,000,000’
5. ‘Stumble’

Speaking back in September, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe said that the band “will never reunite”.

“We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together,” he added. “We don’t really need that, and I’m really happy that we just have the legacy of the 32 years of work that we have,”