'Try Not to Breathe' is one song title 'Everybody Hurts' is another. 'Automatic for the People' feels dour, like earnestness drained of belief. has distinguished itself for its ability to believe, if not in something as corny as rock and roll, then in the even cornier redemptive power of art. For the past decade, even on 'Losing My Religion,' R.E.M. 'Automatic for the People,' the new album by the adventurous folk-rock band _B_R.E.M.,_b_ is a crushed response to crushing times. Not that fun and funk don't creep into the mix. What you hear instead, from Peter Gabriel to R.E.M., is the sound of dread. If Campaign '92 has brought a breath of optimism, you can't hear it by these albums. Fall releases find acts mulling over an even more bitter uncertainty. The mood haunting this season's key albums first emerged on three unlikely hits from 1991: R.E.M.'s 'Losing My Religion,' Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and Michael Jackson's 'In the Closet'-songs so tattered in their faith they treat the pop process itself as potentially corrosive. Pop trends combust spontaneously, or so the hype has it, but pop moods coalesce over time.
