Nirvana

With the Lights Out

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Editor's Review:

The release of "You Know You're Right" on Nirvana's self-titled greatest hits album a couple years back may have led fans to believe that there were untold treasures of never-before released new songs locked in the vaults. The release of Nirvana's highly anticipated With the Lights Out proves that this is not the case. Apparently, Kurt Cobain was not as prolific a songwriter as 2Pac.
With the Lights Out is for fans who border on the fanatic. The tracks on the CDs are mostly culled from home recordings, demos and rehearsal clips; the DVD portion of the box set includes lengthy footage of Nirvana rehearsing in Krist Novoselic's mother's house, filmed on a camcorder in 1988. As a result, its sound quality is sporadic - sometimes downright shitty - and, with the exception of Butch Vig mixes of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Breed," which pretty much sound exactly like the popular album versions, this box set is rather unaccessible.
However, in so doing, With the Lights Out paints a poignant picture of the band. Even in this collection's shaky, stripped-down moments, what shines through is Cobain's songwriting and impassioned delivery. A grainy home demo recording of "Sliver," with notably different lyrics than the version released on Incesticide and featuring only Cobain on acoustic guitar, is achingly personal and shows that Nirvana didn't need studio tricks or deafening distortion to be powerful and unrestrained. Included with the four discs is a thick booklet with liner notes from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and chronology of Nirvana's eventful, albeit far too brief, timeline.
- James Barone
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