Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound each have reviews out on the 20th anniversary reissue of Nirvana’s third studio album In Utero (1993). This album evokes a very specific period of my life. It came out a few weeks before I moved out of my family home into La Trobe University student housing, and became an industry liaison and writer for LTU’s Rabelais student newspaper. I would often reflect on Nirvana’s ‘Serve The Servants’ and ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle’ as I dealt with public relations executives in the major recording labels. Gen-X traumatised college friends would have ‘Heart-Shaped Box’, ‘Rape Me’, ‘Tourette’s’, and ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ on repeat, and very loud. “Married | Buried” became the signature quote from ‘All Apologies’. When I heard that Kurt Cobain had used King Crimson’s Red (1975) as a sonic reference for producer Steve Albini, I would play both albums back-to-back, ending with Crimson’s ‘Starless’. A German student exchange couple would play the secret, hidden track ‘Endless, Nameless’ as I read Idries Shah’s The Sufis. Friend Michael Keleher juxtaposed Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ with Bob Dylan’s ‘Born Again’ phase as a charismatic Christian. This period of listening to In Utero in vivo ended with Cobain’s Rome suicide attempt in March 1994. We were preparing a Rabelais issue when I heard the news of Cobain’s death, so we rang the editors to stop the presses. Cobain’s death now overshadows what listening to In Utero felt like: an emotional, gritty, purifying, and cleansing anger at everything that felt messed up in the world, and in our young adult lives.