It was the most anticipated release of the holiday CD season. Moreso than U2, Destiny's Child, Eminem and Linkin Park/Jay Z combined. It was, some were saying, the ultimate package that Nirvana fans have been craving for a decade. The Nirvana box set. It had finally come to pass, and fans everywhere were giddy.

But is With the Lights Out really worth the attention, the hype, and the general excitement? Or is it a terrible disappointment, a set meant to gouge longtime fans whilst delivering none of its promise?

The answer lies somewhere in between. For those who could break down the feedback and noise that Nirvana made, and get to the true center of the band's music, there is plenty in this box set that is worth your time to seek out. There are also quality issues that run throughout the set, mostly due to the fact that many of these performances are from old bootleg tapes and demos that are, in some cases, now close to two decades old. In fact, the mere ability of Bob Ludwig, who mastered the set, and Adam Kasper, who assembled the audio, to get something this listenable out of what in some cases is nothing more than crap is impressive. So what follows is a disc by disc breakdown, the three audio CDs and the accompanying DVD. Please note that this is not going to be a quick summary, and while I don't cover every track individually, I do cover many of them. So be warned, this is a LONG review.

Disc One: The Early Years-BLEACH

The box set begins with, of all things, a cover of Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker. Personally, I feel this atrocious cover should have been left in the vault. Taken from the first performance the band ever gave, at a house party in March 1987, the quality is terrible and Kurt's vocals, if you can even call them vocals, are unintelligible.

Things get a bit better for a trio of radio performances, and while the songs don't match up to what the band would give us later on, they're at least listenable for the most part. Mrs Butterworth shows off Kurt's sense of humor, with a bit of a rambling speech/spoken word in the middle of the song that is just out and out ridiculous.

Both If You Must and Pen Cap Chew were recorded at the same sessions as tracks that would later appear on both Bleach and Incesticide. The producer for these sessions, Jack Endino, lent a raw yet smooth vibe to these sessions, and it helps the songs out greatly.

In putting together this box set, there seemingly was a fascination with Kurt's fascination with Led Zeppelin, given the fact that a cover of Moby Dick appears here alongside the previous version of Heartbreaker (not to mention Immigrant Song on the DVD, but more on that later). Needless to say, how this made the set is beyond me. You can't tell me there wasn't something more interesting in the vaults than this.

Songs casual fans would know don't show up until the 2/3 mark, when solo demos of About a Girl and Polly appears. This leads up to a full band version of the latter that ends the first disc, this version lying somewhere between the fast and slow versions that have been heard previously. There's also a cathartic version of Dive here, a version that is much more raw than the Incesticide version.

The other home demos on here don't do a whole lot for me. Beans is a weird bit that I don't even know how to begin to describe, while Don't Want It All is a bare bones track that is obviously in the early stages of development at the time of this recording. On the other hand, Clean Up Before She Comes, while raw, sounds like it has/had a ton of potential, and the experiment with harmony is an interesting one to listen to.

Instead, the most fascinating string of songs are the three Huddie Ledbetter covers that appear towards the end of the disc. It's not hard to see the irony in Cobain singing They Hung Him On a Cross, and the instrumentation on Grey Goose is perhaps the most care I've heard the band give to playing things right in quite a while. And the revved up version of Ain't It a Shame is GASP, FUN!

Overall grade for disc one: C/C+ There is some good stuff here, but the quality is questionable for much of it, and other things, like the Zep covers, are just plain embarrassing. It's one thing for this stuff to be circulating on bootlegs, it's another to put it out as part of a $40-$50 box.

Disc Two: Post BLEACH-Post NEVERMIND

At first glance, for casual fans, disc two would undoubtedly be the most interesting disc. Besides the two versions of Smells Like Teen Spirit, there are early versions of many of the band's most catchy numbers (Lithium, Sliver, Aneurysm). But looks can be deceiving.

Thankfully, the quality issues that so marred the first disc in spots has been resolved in most places. It still isn't perfect, but at least it isn't one big mess of feedback and noise, not to mention static. Of course, there is still a couple of trouble spots, chief among them the first version of Teen Spirit, which is billed as a "rehearsal demo," but it sounds like it was recorded with a cheesy $10 analog recorder (and hell, it probably was). The demo of Drain You sounds much the same.

I had heard so much about the Butch Vig mix of Teen Spirit that I must admit it was one of the things I was most looking forward to hearing on this box. Not because I'm a big fan of the song (I'm not), but because I was hoping it would help to salvage a song that for me had become meaningless. And I dunno, I guess this infamous mix is okay, but it isn't as raw as perhaps I was expecting. I understand there's only so much you can do, I mean, the song is the song, but it sounds like the song just has more reverb.

It's also interesting to hear those older songs that I'm so familiar with in their early forms. Hearing Kurt play some of these songs solo on an acoustic guitar shows that the band had more than a few other songs they could have played for the MTV Unplugged session. It would have been great to hear an acoustic Sliver before now, and while the acoustic Been a Son is extremely short, I like what I hear.

One of the more remarkable performances from that Unplugged session was the cover of Where Did You Sleep Last Night? Unfortunately, the version here, recorded as a home demo, lacks the pure passion of the Unplugged recording. The band does get one cover right on this disc: the Velvet Underground cover Here She Comes Now sounds terrific, and this is one of the times on this box set where it almost feels like Nirvana gives much more reverence to playing other people's songs and getting them right than they do their own. The same phenomenon takes place on Return of the Rat.

The rough mix of Breed kicks some major a*s though, and the demo form of Aneurysm is powerful as well. What does not kick a*s is the awful almost nine minute Endless, Nameless, which takes the worst parts of Sonic Youth and emphasizes them over the length of the track.

The b-sides here are hit and miss affairs, and neither Oh the Guilt or Curmudgeon, both the kind of loud noisefests that many casual fans would skip over, can match up to the outtake titled Old Age, which is yet another example of Cobain's penchant and ability to write an out and out great pop song.

Overall grade for disc two: B- More good stuff here than on disc one, but quality issues still arise in too many spots, and some of these songs are just plain forgettable (see: Curmudgeon, Endless, Nameless).

Disc Three: In Utero-The Day The Music Died

For this reviewer, In Utero was the band's finest studio album and it wasn't even a close competition. And so, perhaps it isn't surprising that I enjoy disc three more than the other two discs of music in this set. Yes, there are still quality issues, but they are minimized.

The third disc begins with a pair of versions of Rape Me, a song that would generate its own fair share of controversy (from the MTV Awards to its release on In Utero). The first version is Kurt once again alone on acoustic guitar, which sets up the full band demo very well. I really dig the second version, as it has more of a raw edge to it, and in some ways, this version may have fit more on In Utero because of that rawness.

In fact, most of In Utero shows up on this disc in various forms, be it in the experimental (Scentless Apprentice) or early version (Heart Shaped Box, with noticably different lyrics) sense.

What helps to make disc three most enjoyable as well is the fact that there is a littany of great b-sides and outtakes provided on the disc as well. I Hate Myself and I want to Die can be a hard listen at first, with the jarring feedback, but I like the purely primitive sound that is found on the track. Moist Vagina continues that raw sense, while the experimental and almost overly long Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip shows a continually evolving band. Unfortunately, Kurt's vocals on Gallons are nearly unintelligible.

I was also one of the people who thought Dave Grohl was the mindless one in the outfit, a beast of a drummer to be sure, but one who probably couldn't write a song to save his life. I've been proven wrong, obviously, with Foo Fighters being such an excellent band, but the proof was already out there in Sappy, a song that utilized the loud/soft dynamic Nirvana made famous.

Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam was a track the band did at the MTV Unplugged performance, and this version is just as solid. However, the song doesn't differ all that much from its already released version, so exactly what the point of releasing this version was, I'm not sure.

The set closing demos reveal that Kurt was just as in tune with his songwriting as ever. Do Re Mi, recorded in 1994, begins to show the frailty in Kurt's spirit through his wavering voice. You Know You're Right, this version being Kurt's home demo of the last great Nirvana track, shows the same frailty. And one cannot speak of frailty without mentioning All Apologies, which is probably the most cliche way to end this box, but it somehow manages to work.

Overall grade for disc three: B+/A- Between the solid demos of the old songs, the inclusion of some of the band's best b-sides, and the excellent set closing home demos, this is by far the most satisfying disc of the bunch.

Disc Four: The DVD

Out of this entire collection, perhaps the most disappointing is the DVD portion. Essentially a compilation of random video clips, home videos, bootlegs, and the band goofing off, it is absolutely chaotic, and I don't mean that in the good sense.

It starts off with a 1988 rehearsal at Krist's mom's house. The band plays some songs, Kurt sings facing into a wall, away from the camera, and in between, you see them goofing around. While it is a much different vibe to see the band having this much fun, the quality and performances, well, suck. The songs are sloppy, which wouldn't be a problem if they at least sounded decent, but they don't. And since it was filmed on a camcorder 16 or 17 years ago, the video is "eh" at best.

Probably the most interesting bit of the DVD are the various bits shot while on the road on the Bleach tour. This again shows the band being complete goofballs at times, and what can I say, I'm a sucker for seeing a band having fun.

There's also the Sub Pop video version of In Bloom, one of the songs that would blow up as part of Nevermind. The first ever performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit isn't nearly quite as historic as everyone seems to think, and, in fact, the quality, both video and audiowise, sucks. The same can be said for many of the bootlegged performances here, and even the closing "cover" of Seasons in the Sun (which features Kurt just making up the words while playing drums) isn't as enjoyable as you might think it would be.

It's one thing for footage like this to be circulated amongst fans as bootlegs. At least then people know what they are getting, and with the proliferation of the internet, anyone with half a brain can probably find it pretty easily without money changing hands (meaning the band wouldn't be getting scrwed). It's completely another though to put utter crap like this out as part of a friggin box set and charge people $40-$50 to see it. It doesn't matter if it's the surviving members of Nirvana doing it, or the Beatles, or Pearl Jam, or Michael Jackson. It's wrong to treat your hardest core fans like that. If there wasn't enough good footage available, there shouldn't have been a DVD portion: period. As if the questionable quality of the audio in many spots wasn't bad enough...
Overall grade for the DVD: D+

The Booklet

The booklet is actually one of the redeeming parts of this set. It gives an interesting timeline of recording sessions, important events, and various quotes from members of the band. It also features a tribute from Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, one of Kurt's greatest influences, and one of his better friends in the industry. There is plenty in the booklet for both casual and hardcore fans to salivate over.

Should You Buy It?

There are people who have been waiting years for this set, and it is perhaps important to know that there are those whose expectations could never be met, and those who no matter what, would praise the hell out of the thing, just for the band name on the side of the box.

With The Lights Out is no doubt put together for the hardcore fan, and therefore, the casual fan might not have the patience needed to delve into this set. When you add in the lack of quality in many of the audio tracks and, especially, the DVD, I find it hard to believe this could ever be a worthwhile purchase for the casual fan.

For the hardcore fan, though, I'm sure they will find plenty to like about this set.

As for those somewhere in between the two, like myself, that will all depend on how much bootleg quality you can take in one sitting. For me, this box was a disappointment, despite the numerous great tracks and demos contained on it.

3 stars and a VERY tepid recommendation to hardcore fans and those who can deal with poor sound quality.






Recommended: Yes