Music Reviews Reissues

Nirvana's first album ('Bleach', 1989) was warped, made strange by the band's then-current influences (Soundgarden and the grunge scene in Seattle, mostly). The second ('Nevermind', '91) was odder still, a zeitgeist-grabbing moment wherein pop thrill met metal overspill. The third ('In Utero', '93) should have been weaker, weighed down by the burden of expectation. That it wasn't is some testament to the triumph of will on the part of the three core members, and Kurt Cobain's punk-rock upbringing.

'In Utero' is where Nirvana became themselves in the studio. Live, they had been themselves since at least 1990. The drums are thunderous, the guitar never less than, on which his scream seems to sum up the anguish and alienation of a generation). The mood is supercharged, clammy, claustrophobic — you can taste the dank and damp of Seattle's basements and LA's squalid second-storey apartments within its grooves. Rarely has mainstream music sounded so sarcastic, so lonely. 'I miss the comfort in being sad,' Cobain screams on , one of many tracks both inspired by and helped into shape by his wife.