In Utero was Nirvana's second major label album, the follow-up to a smash worldwide hit. Pressure came from every side, and from their own battered brains and bodies. It was the last studio album Nirvana would ever record, but in its twisted, corrosive beauty, In Utero would also be their best.

The latest album to take the spotlight in the swell 33 1/3 musical chapbook series, the book In Utero looks at Nirvana's defining statement step-by-step in its gestation. Author Gillian G. Gaar is a Seattle-based author whose works include She's A Rebel: The History of Women In Rock & Roll, and she was a consultant on the Nirvana CD/DVD boxed set With The Lights Out. She crafts a fine guide to one of the 1990s' best albums.

Plop it on your stereo, and In Utero still assaults from the start. The very first track, "Scentless Apprentice," barges into the room with a clattering crash of guitar chords and Kurt Cobain sneering, "Teenage angst has paid off well / now I'm bored and old." It's a response to the realities and demands of mega-fame, and unlike the glossier punk rock of Nevermind, In Utero is a ragged, determinedly outsider piece of art.

Produced, controversially, by the uncompromising Steve Albini (of the band Big Black, and producer for The Pixies, PJ Harvey and many others), the disc is filled with pure noise workouts crushed together with Cobain's uncanny sense of melody. The gorgeously candid and cruel single "Heart-Shaped Box" sums up the leap forward this album represented from Nevermind. Gaar tells us how the band decided to push their boundaries – "I wasn't half as proud of Nevermind as I am of this record," Cobain told one interviewer.

Gaar decides to emphasize the mechanical process of creation rather than analyzing the finished results of In Utero too much. The book In Utero is as a result less personal than some of the other books in the 33 1/3 series, more of a straightforward guide to the album. While it lacks a little passion, it's filled with solid information about In Utero's creation. When Gaar does step forward to offer her own views, they're usually right on the mark, as when she notes, "The bursts of anger and sarcasm throughout the album keep the songs from sinking into abject despondency."

Gaar also makes a conscious choice to avoid tabloid-style coverage of Cobain's personal life and woes here. There's passing mentions of his ailments and addictions, but little space is devoted to rehashing them. It's a good call – we all know what Cobain's final fate was, anyway. And it places a value on In Utero above just being a morbid musical suicide note.

Gaar's music-centric approach is a valuable one, and she gives a lot of credit to the often overlooked talents of Dave Grohl's ferocious drumming and Krist Novoselic's thundering bass in Nirvana.

As Novoselic says, "With all the stuff that was going on, what we did was we got together and we started rehearsing and we left everything at the door and we started playing some great music. And we put a record together. And that's all that really mattered."