Published on Jun 9, 1998
When I started writing for the now-defunct site HitsWorld, the
first album I reviewed was Nirvana’s final release,
From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah. Although I no longer
have the original review I wrote, I seem to remember I wasn’t
particulary kind to it. (I also didn’t slam it that badly –
obviously I was more moderate than I am now.)
But that was almost two years ago, and it’s been almost that
long since I dug that disc out of the Pierce Archives (where we’re
still cheering about the ass-kicking the Bulls delivered Sunday
night) and gave it another chance. And while there are still many
rough edges to a band that defined the word rough,
From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah sounds more like a
natural live album than a farewell gasp to suicide chump Kurt
Cobain.
The album pulls tracks from almost the entire history of the
band, even taking one track from an early January show in 1994,
just about three months before Cobain’s suicide. Surprisingly, the
fluctuating lineup changes aren’t something you can hear with a
cursory listen; though you can tell when time frames jump a bit, it
sounds like one working unit.
A lot of the band’s early work (from the
Bleach era) does not hold up very well – kind of like the
album from which the original tracks came from. Cobain seems to
want to blow through numbers like “Negative Creep” and “Blew,” and
one really can’t blame him. These works were not the best
representations of Nirvana’s musical prowess.
But when you strip away some of the deadwood,
From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah does a pretty decent job
of painting this band’s history. Tracks like “Aneurysm,” “Been A
Son,” “Scentless Apprentice” and “Lithium” translate rather well on
the concert stage. Even a few older tracks like “School” and “Spank
Thru” (a track I honestly don’t remember hearing on
Bleach) tend to show off the better moments of this
band.
And though Cobain claimed he was tortured by the success Nirvana
quickly achieved, there are times he (God forbid) sounds happy
singing about teenage angst, almost as if the music was finally
acting as a catharsis. Too bad those times weren’t as often as
we’re led to believe; I find it hard to comprehend how Cobain saw
his life comprising of piss and vinegar.
Many of the songs don’t have the polish that their studio
counterparts had; whether this is a good or bad thing is left up to
the individual listener’s discretion. At times, the roughness
charms me; other times, I find myself longing for a little more
clean sound coming from the speakers. (And no matter what my mood,
I could easily live without the balls-on-fire screaming on
“Intro”.)
From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah is both a fitting
conclusion to Nirvana and a sad epitaph to a tragic figure in the
alternative world. While there are some moments on this disc that
show why they were the kings of grunge for a time, this is most
definitely a mood disc, and should be approached with an air of
caution.