I still remember the first time I bought this album. I was going on fourteen years old, on a school trip to New York City. I found the tape in a little store off the beaten path. Nevermind had just come out, but no one could foresee the impact on music Nirvana was going to have.

Fast forward to 2009 and I sit here admiring a gorgeous 180-gram white vinyl 2 LP set. Album #1 is a remastered pressing of the original Bleach LP. The other is a February 9th, 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon.

To review the musical content of a classic album is daunting.

So I'm not going to do it.

That said, there has been a glut of newly pressed vinyl in the past year or so in where no care was taken in mastering. This, in my opinion, is a scary turn down the same path vinyl has sadly gone before. One of the main reasons we have other formats is because vinyl was deemed to be a limited format. It's not. So a hard look at the quality of this remaster is in order.

The needle drops and the best sound in the vinyl world happens. No sound. A nice, clean pressing. Well packaged also, with none of the annoying packaging scuffs that happen with careless packaging before sealing. The mothers were cut from the original 1/4" 2 track master tape.  

Songs like the album opener “Blew," "School," and “Negative Creep” sit on the vinyl nicely, not too loud, my subwoofer doesn’t work overtime, the overall sound is not compressed too much. Jack Endino did a wonderful job capturing the instruments and vocals properly, which is about all you really could ask for an album recorded for $600, but he definitely went the extra mile in making sure this album sounds HEAVY. Not indie lo-fi.

“Floyd the Barber” has got to be the scariest song about Mayberry, with lyrical content dark enough that Slayer would be happy to call it their own. None of the songs are too long, or too loud, or too quiet! Any fan of Nirvana knows that they created some fine art over a very short span. Bleach was their chainsaw sculpture.

On to the live disc. This could have gone either way. There is plenty of early Nirvana available on the internet. Did they just find a nice bootleg, and press it to vinyl? Nope. A fantastic sounding show. You feel like you’re at a club that holds 250 people, all wearing flannel, before it was a fad.

It’s clear from the performances on Record 2 that Nirvana was a full-fledged working band by early 1990, not the garage band they’d been just 2 years before. The terror with which Kurt sings the set opener “School” would bring even the prom queen’s worst high school memories back to life. The version of “Dive” included is in my opinion the best I’ve heard.  Studio or live.

The inclusion of “Spank Thru” from the Sub Pop 200 compilation, and the Vaselines “Molly’s Lips” round out side 1, hinting at the more melodic side that was to come from the band in years to come. Side 2 opens with another track that hints to Nirvanas pop future, the b-side “Sappy’. Not to let the audience rest much, the band goes into scorchers such as “Scoff,” “Been a Son,” and the set closer “Blew” with a supreme version of “About a Girl” sandwiched in there.  

Chad Channing’s competent drumming makes me ask 2 questions. What would Nevermind and In Utero have sounded like with double kick drums? And would Nirvana have taken off like they did if Dave Grohl never joined? I wonder...

The set ends with Kurt smashing his guitar. No huge stage-pyro or explosion sounds through the PA, just the screeching and scraping sounds of a mangled guitar in the hands of a man who was in the end, just as damaged as the instrument he played.

Overall, the live show sounds awesome. There was no attempt to pump extra loudness out of the 20 year old master tape, just sweetening it enough so that the highs don’t distort, and the bass pumps just like you were on stage. Some noise reduction, or even reducing noise through EQ is apparent on the recording. I'm assuming that the master was just 1/4" 2-track tape (there’s a photo of it in the expansive booklet). The same frequencies that distort, and hurt your ears (i.e. - Kurt’s angry wails) are softened nicely on the recording, but it appears that the same frequencies were where the cymbals sat as well, as they are a bit low in the mix.  

If you're like me and the last piece of Nirvana music you bought was In Utero when it came out, this record is well worth your $30. If you’re new, and want to discover the music, download it. Let the music digest and sit with you. Then you’ll want to buy it.

PRICE: $29.98 (list)