With all the fervor and applause given the recent Nirvana box set release With the Lights Out, it is probably just as important to give equal airtime to the "rarities" set that had already been out for over a decade when the box set release was finally announced.

It's a bit hard to believe, but Incesticide came out in late 1992 (how the hell was that 12 years ago already? sheesh!), and if I remember correctly, I was in a record store the day it came out. But to show just where my tastes were, I wasn't there for Incesticide. Instead, I was there for the new Bon Jovi record, Keep the Faith. I think I was the only one there for the new Bon Jovi record, but whatever.

I didn't actually buy Incesticide until about 2 years ago, when I saw it on sale for $8 and figured it was time I dropped the dough on it, after taking it out of the local library enough times that I may as well have owned it from there. To this day, it is still the Nirvana album I'm most likely to take out and play, since so little of it has been played by radio, and none of it played into the ground the way half of Nevermind and 1/3 of In Utero was.

At the time of its release, Incesticide was a veritable treasure trove of rarities, ranging from B-sides, to old vinyl singles, to the plainly obscure. And if not for a couple of outright mis-steps, Incesticide may just have been the best single disc of music that Nirvana left us. As it stands, it takes a close second, just behind the excellent In Utero.

The disc shows many of the sides that Nirvana, and by extension, lead vocalist/guitarist Kurt Cobain, embraced. The best known song from this set, Sliver, is one of the best pop punk songs ever written, and the production on it helps give the song a raw, sloppy edge missing from the likes of Bowling For Soup. On the other end of the spectrum, Aero Zeppelin is an accurate portrayal of Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin coming together, even if it seems overly simple. While he didn't sing their praises the way he did bands like The Vaselines, Cobain was a Zeppelin fan, a fact brought to stark light on the first track of the aforementioned box set, a cover of Heartbreaker.

Speaking of the Vaselines, two covers of their songs turn up here, taken from the now famous John Peel Sessions. Both songs are simple power pop numbers with a decided punk influence. At times, both of these songs sound similar to some of Green Day's rawest material. Molly's Lips is a bit more memorable than Son of a Gun, but each are fantastic snapshots not only into the Vaselines, but into Cobain's affection for well done pop music. This was a guy, who, afterall, loved The Knack's album that featured My Sharona.

The other song from the Peel sessions, Turnaround, is a Devo cover that manages to sound somewhat Devo-ish, and at the same time, sound as if Nirvana has transformed it into their own song. The fuzzy bassline recalls Devo, while Cobain's simple riffing is simply classic Nirvana.

Some of Nirvana's strongest originals are featured throughout Incesticide as well. Besides the previously mentioned Sliver, there's the upbeat Been a Son and the song that perhaps defines the "loud-soft dynamic," in Aneurysm, a live version of which was featured on From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah and became a hit.

Unfortunately, all the punk thrashing becomes a bit old towards the end of the disc, and for every song like Dive, with a great riff and a driving chorus, there's a song like Beeswax, which features, well, nothing really memorable at all. The most memorable thing about Downer is that it lasts only 1:45, so at least it's over with rather quickly.

There are some solid moments of experimentation here as well, though. I like the terrific bassline that opens Hairspray Queen, and the song has a decided new wave flavor to it, thanks to the chiming chords played by Cobain, even if his vocals nearly ruin the song. And the five minute plus Big Long Now has a swirling, psychedelic flare to it that isn't much like anything else in the Nirvana catalog.

While Incesticide isn't quite as good an album as In Utero (the band's best effort), the fact that an odds and sods collection such as this is so memorable speaks to how good of a band Nirvana actually was. While Cobain's suicide has forever landed the band a spot on every critic's "ten best bands ever" list, what sometimes gets lost is that Nirvana truly were an awesome band. Thankfully, a disc like Incesticide works as a terrific reminder of that very fact.





Recommended: Yes