Now that Dave Grohl has gotten through the intense scrutiny leveled at the Foo Fighters’ debut, this follow-up finds him flexing his creative muscles a little easier. Forgoing the autocratic approach of FOO FIGHTERS, THE COLOUR & SHAPE allows the other members of the band a greater amount of influence, which quickly becomes evident. The punk-pop nuggets outnumber the thrashier moments on this record. Nevertheless, Grohl’s time on the D.C. hardcore scene is never far from the creative process, whether it’s the first squeals and squawks that pop up around the hooks and screaming vocals of “Hey, Johnny Park” and “My Poor Brain” or the alternating, Nirvana-like dynamics of “Enough Space.” Elsewhere, the dreamy pop of “Walking After You” (recorded in one take by Grohl at Washington, D.C. radio station WGNS) and “Up In Arms” rubs shoulders with the Catherine Wheelish sheets of guitar flowing through “My Hero.”

Tracklisting
1. Doll
2. Monkey Wrench
3. Hey, Johnny Park!
4. My Poor Brain
5. Wind Up
6. Up in Arms
7. My Hero
8. See You
9. Enough Space
10. February Stars
11. Everlong
12. Walking After You
13. New Way Home

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (5/29/97, pp.47-48) – 3 Stars (out of 5) – “…COLOUR has a big, radio-ready, modern-rock sound….gives the impression that Grohl is working out some romantic issues–there are lots of relationship tunes both about breaking up and about a new love…”

Spin (7/97, p.113) – 6 (out of 10) – “…That’s Dave Grohl, a simple rock guy in a simple rock band who occasionally manages to write some really good songs. He’ll probably never come up with a godhead masterpiece, but then again, he already played drums on one.”

Entertainment Weekly (5/23/97, pp.62-63) – “…The band heard on THE COLOUR & THE SHAPE is not a ragtag slacker unit but a bunch of confident, powerful pros–brawny, metallic, able to shift gears and tempos on a dime….In fact, the album often feels like the new-wave metal Metallica should have but didn’t concoct with LOAD…” – Rating: B

Q (1/03, p.54) – Included in Q Magazine’s “100 Greatest Albums Ever”

Melody Maker (12/20-27/97, pp.66-67) – Ranked #21 on Melody Maker’s list of 1997’s “Albums Of The Year.”

NME (Magazine) (12/20-27/97, pp.78-79) – Ranked #46 in NME’s 1997 Critics’ Poll.

“Teenage angst has paid off well,” growls Kurt Cobain on IN UTERO’s opening fusilade, “Serve The Servants,” suggesting that perhaps success has spoiled Nirvana. Not! IN UTERO is a howling, defiantly punkish recording, an unsentimental throwback to an era of garage band epiphanies and raw, unadorned rock and roll. On IN UTERO, Nirvana rails against both “alternative” conformity and polished notions of commercial rock with the anthemic rage of true outcasts.

Engineer-producer Steve Albini has enabled Nirvana to replicate the savage immediacy of their live sound–the sound of a band without commercial aspirations or pretensions, just thrashing away for the sheer joy of noise. Drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic play with heroic power as guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Kurt Cobain overlays their growling beat with shards of broken glass and shattered dreams.

On “Scentless Apprentice” each Cobain power chord is tempered by a series of calculated dissonances and melodic fragments, while the singer bares his vulnerability and anger through Nirvana’s familiar soft-hard-soft-hard structures on “Heart Shaped Box” and “Rape Me.” Through his crunching guitar and elliptical lyrics on various diseases and recoveries, Cobain lays bare the turmoil and resentments, the physical and mental ailments (self-inflicted and otherwise) that have colored Nirvana’s notoriety. Instead of celebrating their success, Nirvana have fashioned a powerful cautionary tale on IN UTERO, to wit: that fame, acclaim and wealth are not liberating; that music like this cannot be produced on an assembly line, then be used once and tossed on a scrap heap; that life and music was a lot more fun when they were back playing for an audience of nine in some grungy club. IN UTERO is too strong and honest to ignore.

Tracklisting
1. Serve The Servants
2. Scentless Apprentice
3. Heart Shaped Box
4. Rape Me
5. Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle
6. Dumb
7. Very Ape
8. Milk It
9. Pennyroyal Tea
10. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
11. Tourette’s
12. All Apologies
13. Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through The Strip

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.53) – Included in Rolling Stone’s “Essential Recordings of the 90’s.”

Rolling Stone (9/16/93, p.63) – 4 1/2 Stars – Outstanding – “…Cobain essentially works according to one playbook, but it’s a winner no matter how he runs it….IN UTERO is a lot of things–brilliant, corrosive, enraged and thoughtful, most of them all at once…”

Spin (5/01, p.109) – Ranked #13 in Spin’s “50 Most Essential Punk Records”.

Spin (9/99, p.126) – Ranked #18 in Spin Magazine’s “90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s.”

Spin (10/93, p.99) – “…IN UTERO is as reckless as anything since Rocket From the Tombs went down in flames….it’s not liberation but its absence that gets illuminated in Nirvana’s songs….setting out to make the last punk album, [IN UTERO] sounds like the first one instead…”

Entertainment Weekly (12/31/93, p.115) – Ranked #5 in Entertainment Weekly’s list of `The Best & Worst Records Of 1993′ – “…In unleashed wails that truly sound like someone giving birth, Cobain does more than wrestle his demons in public–he strangles them….”

Entertainment Weekly (9/24/93, p.90) – “…IN UTERO makes it clear that the trio now has a signature sound ready for the patent office….Cobain writes terrifically punchy songs and [the band] ravages them into beautiful, brutalizing clatter…” – Rating: B+

Q (7/01, p.90) – Included in Q’s “50 Heaviest Albums of All Time”.

Q (10/01, p.73) – Ranked #20 in Q’s “Best 50 Albums of Q’s Lifetime”

Q (12/99, p.76) – Included in Q Magazine’s “90 Best Albums Of The 1990s.”

Q (1/94, p.82) – Included in Q’s list of `The 50 Best Albums Of 1993′ – “…a mature, progressive, marvelous new record…”

Q (10/93, p.114) – 4 Stars – Excellent – “…[IN UTERO's] songs confirm Cobain’s genius with a tune….If this is how Cobain is going to develop, the future is lighthouse-bright…”

Melody Maker (1/1/94, p.77) – Ranked #26 in Melody Maker’s list of the `Albums Of The Year’ for 1993.

Melody Maker (9/4/93, p.31) – “…the history of the last two fraught years weighs mighty heavily upon IN UTERO….it occupies a middle ground between the metal-edged, scum-punk spite of BLEACH and the 10-million selling, grunge-with-gloss killer that was NEVERMIND…”

Musician (10/93, p.88) – “…IN UTERO is a living, breathing, crapping beast of a record that eats expectations for breakfast…”

Village Voice (3/94, p.5) – Ranked #2 in the Village Voice’s 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.

Mojo (Publisher) (p.66) – Ranked #13 in Mojo’s “100 Modern Classics” — “[U]ncompromising, uncomfortable, exhilarating art.”

Mojo (Publisher) (3/03, p.76) – Ranked #40 in Mojo’s “Top 50 Punk Albums” – “…Cobain’s voice is frightening, like Rotten 17 years on…”

New York Times (Publisher) (9/19/93) – “…IN UTERO nearly topples under the weight of contempt and vitriol….there is a clear authorial voice on [the album] detailing a life in transition….Mr. Cobain [has been] turned nearly nihilistic by good fortune…”

NME (Magazine) (8/12/00, p.28) – Ranked #4 in The NME “Top 30 Heartbreak Albums”.

NME (Magazine) (12/25/93, p.67) – Ranked #30 in New Musical Express’ list of `The Top 50 LPs Of 1993′ – “…this attempt to re-invent the Seattle-ites as an unknown, low-fi punk group was doomed–Kurt Cobain’s sense of melody was just too strong to be drowned in dissonance and noise….”

NME (Magazine) (9/4/93, p.31) – “…IN UTERO is a profoundly confused record…neither totally a self-destructive squall of hardcore nihilism…nor NEVERMIND II….As a document of a mind in flux, Kurt should be proud of it…”