It was the band's first album recorded outside of the U.S., with sessions taking place at Livingston Studios in London with producer Joe Boyd.

The record displays a darker, murkier sound than its predecessors, with lyrics drawing from Southern Gothic themes and characters.

Critical reception to Fables of the Reconstruction was positive, with many reviews noting its folk elements and murky tone.

[1] Conditions were less than ideal, as the band had a long commute from their lodging in Mayfair to the studio and London was at the tail end of a rough winter; Buck recalled that "It rained every day it wasn't snowing".

[5] Fables of the Reconstruction mixes the band's established style with folk elements and a darker sound.

[11] Described by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "creepy, rustic psychedelic folk", the album introduced new instrumentation for the band, including strings, brass, and banjo.

[4][7] Prior to the recording of the album, Stipe studied Appalachian music and took an interest in oral storytelling, both of which influenced the material.

[13] Many of its songs describe eccentric, unusual characters; Matthew Perpetua of Pitchfork described the album's aesthetic as "evok[ing] images of railroads, small towns, eccentric locals, oppressive humidity, and a vague sense of time slowing to a crawl.

"[8] Opening track "Feeling Gravitys Pull" starts with a dark, chromatic guitar riff played by Buck.

[8] The song's lyrics reference artist Man Ray and include imagery relating to lucid dreaming.

's songs, "Maps and Legends" uses bassist Mike Mills' backing vocals as counterpoint to Stipe during the chorus.

[8] Its lyrics were inspired by Howard Finster, a Baptist minister and outsider artist who had created the album art for Reckoning the previous year.

[14] Tyler Golsen of Far Out described "Driver 8" as a "classic railroad song" and a showcase for Buck's playing as both an "intricate picker" and a "folky rock star".

"[1] Writing for Drowned in Sound, Andrzej Lukowski describes the song as "a nightmarish tale of a crazed old guy.

[8][18] Perpetua described the song as "approximated Southern funk", while Puterbaugh felt it "sets a tone of dislocation that pervades the entire record".

[8][4] "Green Grow the Rushes" was written as part of a pact between Stipe and 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman Natalie Merchant that both would write a song about the genocide of Native Americans; the 10,000 Maniacs song "Among the Americans", from their 1985 album The Wishing Chair, was Merchant's contribution.

"[10] Closing track "Wendell Gee" features Buck playing banjo; continuing the album's theme of eccentric characters, Puterbaugh considers its lyrics to be a "surreal, lachrymose fable about some back-country oddball.

In a review for AllMusic, Erlewine states that despite finding the album to be less consistent than the band's first two, it does "demonstrate musical growth, particularly in how perfectly it evokes the strange rural legends of the South.

"[7] He goes on to list "Feeling Gravitys Pull", "Maps and Legends", "Green Grow the Rushes", "Auctioneer (Another Engine)", and the first two singles as "among the group's best" songs.

"[18] Matthew Perpetua's review for Pitchfork describes the album as "overlooked and transitional", and considers it to be a "dark and murky set with a textural palette close to the muted earth tones of its packaging.

[12] He considers its lyrics to not be "simply a retelling of [its] myths or a hagiography for these men", referring to the characters featured throughout the album's songs.

"[37] However, Stipe, who once infamously compared the album's sound to "two oranges being nailed together", stated in the same 1991 interview that he believed Fables contained the band's strongest set of songs up to that point.