Even though the band tempered some of Albini's extreme tactics in a remix, the record remains a deliberately alienating experience, front-loaded with many of its strongest songs, and then descending into a series of brief, dissonant squalls before concluding with "All Apologies," which only gets sadder with each passing year. Even if the album wasn't a literal suicide note, it was certainly a conscious attempt to shed their audience - an attempt that worked, by the way, since the record had lost its momentum when Cobain died in the spring of 1994. In Utero, of course, turned out to be their last record, and it's hard not to hear it as Kurt Cobain's suicide note, since Albini's stark, uncompromising sound provides the perfect setting for Cobain's bleak, even nihilistic, lyrics.
Nirvana probably hired Steve Albini to produce In Utero with the hopes of creating their own Surfer Rosa, or at least shoring up their indie cred after becoming a pop phenomenon with a glossy punk record.
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