Get through the context though, and this once-humble collection of songs is an incendiary, transcendent piece of minimalist nihilism gone miraculously mainstream. Songs like "Breed" and "Territorial Pissings" are pure misfit punk energy, blessed with producer Butch Vig's knack for adding sonic value by filtering a foundation through layers of feedback and noise. But "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is, with all clarity and time-removed, every bit the flawless four-plus minutes of era-altering explosiveness it was made to represent at the time. From the way Kurt Cobain's guitar skitters into the choruses and his voice rises to an enraged shriek, to Dave Grohl's monstrous, invigorating demolition of his drum kit (his sustaining of the song's aggression during Cobain's wobbly solo - be that his work or Vig's inspiration - is its secret weapon), "Spirit" was simply destined to prophetize death for the frivolous decade of glam-guitar wankery that had come before it.

And at the risk of resorting once more to context, it's hard not to look back in retrospect and understand Nevermind's success in terms of its unexpectedness. Amidst a period of pre-calculated rock heroes and self-interested excess, an untarnished sonic expression of one man's private angst snuck up on the world and injected itself like a truth serum. And despite Cobain's subsequent unraveling and suicide, and his shining creative effort becoming a matter of institutionalized artifact, Nevermind still resonates today by virtue of that same unmistakable genuineness.

A sense of melancholy seems to pervade the album, perhaps owing to the wistful harmonies, perhaps to the contemplative violin and accordion lines. Whatever it is, the members of Bowerbirds have directed their considerable talents to create an atmosphere of malaise. But what a lovely malaise it is.