After the release of their breakout album "Nevermind", Nirvana was on top of the world. The album was an extraordinary commercial success and put the band under the ever-so-bright spotlight of the music industry. Kurt Cobain didn't take the fame too well as he never wanted it in the first place. Cobain wanted to play his music and be left alone but the music he released shifted a generation of angst-filled teenagers and outcasts who wanted more and more from the band. "In Utero" is very much Kurt's way of dealing with the new found fame; yet it was done in a very compressed way. The songs don't have the same edginess that "Nevermind" had and many of the tracks feel compressed to bits with their wings clipped. But you can't deny the stellar writing from Cobain and you can't compress the way Cobain's voice tears through your soul.
"In Utero" often feels like a neutered version of "Nevermind". The sound is very commercial and doesn't capture the true essence of a band that was so groundbreaking in many ways. Though "Heart-Shaped Box" is a gritty ballad that stands alone on an album stripped of its essentials. The pain is palpable in Kurt's voice on this track and the band follows suit with a steady, droning melody. "Serve The Servants" is about as close as you're gonna get to an autobiography in a track from Cobain. He talks about his parents divorce and his relationship with his father. It's also one of the deeper cuts that you may of missed out on your first listen through. The sound on this album is much more alternative than anything else as each track feels distant from what you'd expect and ultimately flat on the surface. Cobain was notoriously dissatisfied with how the album turned out production wise and you can't really blame him. Not only that, but I also found there to be more filler tracks than gems. A lot of the tracks on here don't even come close to the energy put into the track list on"Nevermind" and many tracks feel like unnecessary noise jammed in between the few good ones.
You do have some classic Nirvana tracks on here such as "All Apologies", "Dumb", and "Pennyroyal Tea" to help this album's cause but in whole the album doesn't quite cut it. The album feels noisy and held-back simultaneously in a way that you can only realize by listening through. "Rape Me" is a perfect example of a noisy song with no direction. The droning lyrics and overt screaming feel really lazy coming from Kurt and in conjunction, uninspired.
Final Summary:
"In Utero" had large shoes to fill. "Nevermind" is a bonafide 10/10 and the resulting follow-up just doesn't give you that similar feeling. The album feels stripped of everything that "Nevermind" was and although the effort was bold, it wasn't the Nirvana we knew. There were a few songs that stood out but overall, the album feels compressed to shit and uninspired in many ways. I will give Cobain this, dealing with success is a tough thing to do. It's draining for someone who isn't used to it and let alone doesn't want it. Ultimately, it showed on "In Utero" that it had a negative affect on his craft. But at the end of the day, "In Utero" is hit or miss. If anyone else wrote this it would've been deemed mediocre at best, but Nirvana had the luxury of being Nirvana so in essence, it was over-hyped a bit. I don't know what Cobain truly thought about "In Utero", but I wouldn't of wanted to go out like this.
Rating: 7.5/10
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