NIRVANA レコード& CD

Review: Nirvana still seems cool as fuck all these many decades after their frontman died. Their musical legacy lives on each time a new generation licks into the grunt chromes of the music, or each time we get a reissue or special limited edition picture disc album like the one. It is a very real and raw recording from their show at Hollywood Rock Festival which was actually held at Paca da Apoteose, Rio de Janeiro on 23rd January 1993. Plenty of the band's classics made the setlist and they sound as sleazy and gritty as ever on this recording.

Review: By 1992 Nirvana weren't just in full swing, they'd done the unthinkable - turning the hardcore end of a rock 'n' roll sub genre that originated in the US Pacific Northwest into a global chart-topping phenomena. And they achieved this without selling out, with third and final album, In Utero, arguably laying the tarmac for a road to increasingly experimental sounds that would tragically never be fully explored due to frontman Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994.

This exceptional live recording from the Spanish capital two years earlier represents the outfit at their peak of dominance, having released their most commercially successful record, Nevermind, 12 months or so earlier, creating a slew of anthems such as 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Something In The Way', and 'Come As You Are' to international youth culture folklore. History lessons aside, they were more potent live than on any studio recording, with this breakneck, raw-throated and high-intensity set exemplary of why.

Review: It's hard to underestimate the impact of Nirvana's second studio album, Nevermind, when it first hit stores 30 years ago. A more polished - but still beautifully scuzzy - set than its predecessor, the album turned the Seattle band into worldwide stars and made grunge indie-rock's most talked about sub-genre. This 30th anniversary edition presents the original album in freshly remastered form. As a result, classics such as 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come as You Are' and 'Drain You' sound fresher and heavier than ever. This time round, there's also a second bonus disc made up of live recordings of Nirvana in action in Tokyo, Melbourne, Amsterdam and California during 1991 and '92.