Music: An Autumn Harvest

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It is an abundant fall for rock. Springsteen and Michael Jackson already, the first solo effort by the Band's Robbie Robertson and another album of guitar magic by Ry Cooder due within a month. The momentum does not stop with the big names, however. Some of the best music around is coming up from below superstar level.

R.E.M. is a Georgia band playing its way past cult status, and its new album, Document (I.R.S. Records), will serve as a tidy introduction to its flights of hard whimsy. Particular attention should be paid to a little ditty titled Its the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). But these guys are not just wise-offs. Their King of Birds, with its overlapping rhythms and wisps of Indian instrumentation, is a distinctive anthem of musical independence.

The Brandos, on their Honor Among Thieves (Relativity), sing bold, head-on rock, Creedence Clearwater-style. Tunes like Gettysburg and Hard Luck Runner are of a type that has lately been called, somewhat pejoratively, "roots rock," but a band like the Brandos gives ample evidence that those roots run deep and still offer great nourishment.

The BoDeans should know. Their second album, Outside Looking In (Reprise/ Slash), produced by Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, is a tuneful advance over their exceptional debut last year, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams. They give those roots a few strong twists, then tie them in tight rhythmic knots. Say About Love could almost come from some rediscovered master of a Buddy Holly session in Clovis, N. Mex. What It Feels Like moves like a cat burglar, sounds fresh as tomorrow and -- well, feels like the future.