Reviews of the four nirvana albums that followed In Utero in an alternate timeline
Untitled 4.5 out of 5 stars
June 1996
Cobain offers an unsettling front row seat to his undoing
Withdrawal is recurring theme on Nirvana’s new emphatically untitled album. Withdrawal from self, from society, from fame, from relationships, and of course from drugs. “Undo my fame, erase my name” Cobain howls on Track Three (like the album, none of the songs have titles). It’s one of the less-obtuse lyrics on the album and it’s clear Cobain saw no point in obscuring the sentiment with artifice or affect. He wants you to know he really means it this time.
It’s been just over two years since Kurt Cobain’s failed suicide attempt and disappearance from the public eye. There’s been much discussion and debate in the sphere of music journalism about whether Nirvana as we knew it would ever return - or if it needed to. Many argued that Nirvana had run its course, creating a durable template for a half-a-generation of pale imitators and leaving the shell of an utterly demolished frontman in its wake. The release and success of bandmate Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters LP last year further fueled speculation that Nirvana was no more.
But it turns out Cobain had much more to say and the result is eleven tracks that sound like a man unravelling and more interested in observing and cataloging the process than doing anything to stop it.
On the mesmerizing Track Six Cobain repeats “I’m tired I tried” with such intensity and rage that it becomes hypnotic, sucking the listener into a vortex of frustration, failure and fuckedness that feels impossible to escape. Cobain has always had a knack for finding these seemingly innocuous phrases and weaponizing them into something more sinister than the sum of their syllables.
The album is full of moments like this that are as harrowing as they are compelling. Track Four presents his struggle with kicking heroin in such a thoroughly visceral fashion you might check your own arms for track marks after listening.
And yet for all the brutality and suffering and soul-searching and bugs-under-your-skin paranoia, the album never feels oppressive. It’s heavy of course, both conceptually and sonically, but it’s never a drag. At times it’s downright catchy. It’s the soundtrack to a man battling his demons - and the man just happens to be one of the best songwriters of his generation.
But the demons definitely deserve a co-writer credit.
Euphobia - 4 out of 5 stars
April 2002
Guitars are having a moment and Nirvana has returned to show the garage kids how its done.
As the feedback rang out at the end of the final encore of their triumphant headline set at Coachella 2000, Kurt signed off with a simple, “Thank you, we’ve been Nirvana, that’s it.” Those seven words fueled instant speculation that the band was kaput. It would have been a fitting end; a bookend to close out the decade they had a major hand in defining. In the four years since the release of their last album as a band (1996’s Untitled) Cobain had released two critically acclaimed solo albums and an odd-and-sods collection of bedroom demos. Meanwhile over the course of three albums Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters had evolved from side project to denim and leather clad Saviors of Classic Rock and a formidable headlining concern in their own right. Both Cobain and Grohl would punt when anyone brought up questions about Nirvana’s future and no one expected Krist Novoselic to know anything so they didn’t bother to ask.
Rumbles of a fifth Nirvana studio LP surfaced on the internet last year. The band had allegedly been sighted entering Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. An anonymous source leaked a list of 23(!) track titles. And Pat Smear “accidentally” referenced “the new thing with Kurt” in an interview with Kerrang.
It seems fitting that Cobain and Co. would return at a time when bands like The White Stripes, The Vines, The Hives, and the Libertines are making stripped down rock not only relevant again, but fun. Like a dad who wants to show you whippersnappers he still has some moves on the basketball court, it was the perfect time for Seattle’s favorite Rock Stars Emeritus to return to the scene.
Thus, Euphobia. 23 songs in 51 minutes. The title is the clinical term for the fear of joy but this album is joyful to the point of being off-brand.
Grohl has referred to Euphobia as their “new wave LP” and there’s no denying the spirit of 1981 is alive and well throughout. In the liner notes of the 1993 compilation Incesticide, Cobain lamented that Nirvana had become “the 90s’ version of Cheap Trick or The Knack.” While his comments in that context seemed to imply that this was a bad thing to be, this album shows the band not only embracing that legacy but luxuriating in it.
Lyrically it’s obvious Cobain isn’t in the same self-reflective (and self-absorbed) state of mind that has been the trademark of his oeuvre to date. On Euphobia the hooks are huge and topics range from giant Japanese robots to talking sneakers.
Nirvana is - gasp - having fun.
And it works.
That’ll show those kids.
Swine Heart Javelin - 1 out of 5 stars
December 2006
Godfathers of Grunge return with a swing at indie authenticity but strike out.
An uncharacteristically chatty kurt Cobain couldn’t seem to stop talking about this album in the year that lead up to its release. In interview after interview he insisted that this LP would be the most “real” and “authentic” thing he’d ever recorded. In an sit down with the Slicing up Eyeballs blog, he proclaimed it would “make Bleach sound like (Van Halen’s) 1984.” He would go on long tangents about the purity of German noise rock. He name-checked Trout Mask Replica. A lot.
In a recent interview Cobain showed his disdain for the mainstream music scene when he was asked if he felt that he had influenced the current crop of Guys Who Scream and Play Guitar such as My Chemical Romance and 30 Seconds to Mars. Cobain bristled at the suggestion and made it clear that he wanted neither credit nor blame for the current state of music. He’d had enough of that foisted on him in the early 90s. Somehow Puddle of Mudd was HIS fault? He didn’t care for it.
And while it’s not a straight line from Nevermind to The Black Parade, there is a clear path and Cobain seems not only aware of this but disturbed by it. So clearly he had to do something to erase the trail of breadcrumbs. Or at least prove that he was more than just the breadcrumbs.
Cobain’s mantra throughout the process of writing and recording was “no hooks, no hits” and the album successfully and tediously delivers on that promise. The songs are as rambling and unsatisfying as they are frustrating. Chords change. Notes are struck. Lyrics are “sung.” But it’s all a muddy, unfocused mess. One gets the impression that Cobain wanted to put out a piece of work that would challenge his audience and reassert his “indie” bona fides after the success of 2002’s quirky-cool Euphobia. But whereas the deeply-personal 1996 album Untitled dealt with challenging topics, it was an imminently listenable record. Even when it made your skin crawl it also kept your foot tapping. The only physical reaction PHJ will elicit for all but the most devoted Cobain fanatics is a quick leap to the pause button on their iPod.
It’s not hard to see how Cobain wound up here. Pearl Jam (Pepsi to Nirvana’s Coca-Cola) has maintained a fiercely loyal fan base and a level of perceived artistic integrity despite never reaching the commercial heights of their early albums. They put out records without hooks or hits and continued to sell out arenas to a fervid fan base that follows them with the loyalty of 1970s Deadheads. At the same time, many of Nirvana’s other grunge-before-it-was-a-thing Seattle contemporaries like Mudhoney and The Melvins remain obscure but critically adored and endowed with as much “indie cred” as Cobain has money. One gets the impression Cobain would gladly make a trade in-kind.
And with Grohl’s Foo Fighters dominating Big Guitar Rock and manufacturing radio-friendly unit shifters for a decade now, it seems more than ever Cobain is determined to remind people that he isn’t that.
But the fact is Kurt IS that. He always was. Even at his rawest and most “indie” he can’t help but construct actual crowd-pleasing songs. One can almost hear the effort he’s putting in to NOT play anything memorable or catchy on this outing.
It’s telling that Cobain chose not to record this as his sixth solo album. He’s always used those excursions to explore his more experimental tendencies with varying degrees of success and this would have probably been better received in that context. But here he seems determined to remind the world that Nirvana - the Name Brand Band™ both your dad AND your son love - is actually an underground act.
Nobody tell him it hasn’t been that since 1988 or he might try to make another Metal Machine Music.
No Lights Eternal - 5 out of 5 stars
June 2011
Gen-X icons face mid-life and the rigors of regret.
“Teenaged angst has paid off well now I’m bored and old”
Kurt Cobain sang those words almost 20 years ago and that almost paralysing sense of self-awareness and self-critique has never not been present in his work. Now at 45 he’s put the band back together back one last time (he swears!) with an album that wants to deliver a simple message: Kurt is finally at peace with himself and, yes, his legacy.
This is a profoundly unselfconscious album. Cobain isn’t trying to make music for the cool kids he’s convinced are laughing at him behind his back. And he’s also no longer worried that normies who used to beat him up - or worse ignored him - will like his music. He sounds like he’s not thinking about what ANYONE will think for the first time since before “grunge” was a word your aunt knew.
The first single Hate the Hit explores his ambivalence over the song that defined him (you can of course guess what it is even though he never names it). He dissects the idea of having a legacy that he never asked thrust upon him in a way that seems neither bitter nor self-depriacating. If anything he sounds like he’s learned - after all these years - that he doesn’t have to apologize for writing songs that lots and lots of people like.
And he never did.
