5 Tragically Underrated Millennial Youth Group Albums That Deserved Better

The late ’90s and early 2000s were wild times for every genre of music, but especially in the punk/hardcore/metal scenes, where the subculture had a very noticeable rise to the surface.

You could walk into your local mall and buy a Converge or Every Time I Die shirt at Hot Topic, which was very unusual for those of us who were used to having to wait until a band actually toured through your town to buy merch. Along with this came the confluence of Christian evangelicalism and “scene” music, which certainly wasn’t unheard of, as Christian bands and artists had been posing themselves as alternatives to mainstream, or secular, music for decades.

What was unique about the moment was that you had bands whose members were very sincere about their art and also took a stance of strong faith that were paying their dues in dive venues alongside bands whose core values were more… “let’s fuck shit up.” This also meant a rise in indie labels that were more faith-based, like Tooth & Nail out of Seattle or Facedown Records out of Southern California.

I’m kind of getting off track here, but I think you get where I’m going… Among the many Underoaths, Norma Jeans, and The Devil Wears Pradas (all great bands that I love, not shitting on any of them) there were also tons of bands from that same sub-subculture who put out great albums that never really registered for various reasons, and even as a deconstructed ex-vangelical in my early 40s, I still feel like they deserve more credit. Starting with…

1. Nintey Pound Wuss – Where Meager Die of Self-Interest

To be clear, Ninety Pound Wuss would probably not have defined themselves as a “Christian band,” but they—like many of their peers—were saddled with the title simply due to being on Tooth & Nail.

The band released three fantastic albums between 1996 and 1999, but the one right in the middle, Where Meager Die of Self-Interest, is an absolute mastery of post-punk and hardcore fusion.

(Partially related: Ninety Pound Wuss recently dropped a new live recording vinyl, and they have a big show coming up in Seattle on May 31. Check out their Instagram page for more info.)

2. Embodyment – The Narrow Scope of Things

Anyone familiar with Embodyment’s story is absolutely losing their shit right now lol. Here’s why: Arguably, I should be telling you to listen to the band’s 1997 album, Embrace the Eternal, because it is widely considered to be among the earliest examples of deathcore.

I completely agree that it’s a phenomenal album that was ahead of its time, but the band’s shift into a grungy, shoegaze-influenced nu-metal sound with The Narrow Scope of Things is fucking rapture. It’s the first album to feature vocalist Sean Corbrary, whose clean singing elevated the new direction the band was headed.

3. Danielson – Tri-Danielson!!! (Alpha)

I very vividly remember finding this album on clearance in a Christian bookstore and talking my grandma into buying it for me. Little did I know that I was about to have my 14-year-old mind sufficiently blown by how fuckin weird it was. I hadn’t heard music like this—so whimsical and unrestrained—ever in my life.

While Danielson (or Danielson Famile) has a ton of great music, for admittedly sentimental reasons, I’m recommending 1998’s Tri-Danielson!!! (Alpha) as a millennial youth group album, you just have to hear for yourself.

4. Officer Negative – The Death Campaign Project

The timeline of Officer Negative and how this album came to be is too much to get into here, but the gist of it is: they were a punk band who, after some member changes, decided to renovate their sound much heavier, and the result was The Death Campaign, a perfectly blended metalcore album that I feel never got a fair shake back when it first dropped.

5. Horde – Hellig Usvart

This last one is a little bit of a cheat… because it technically came out in the mid-90s, but I’m including it because I didn’t hear about it until I was in high school in the early 2000s.

Horde was the one-man (un)black metal project of Australian musician Jayson Sherlock, who also played in the Christian metal bands Mortification and Paramaecium. He only ever released one album, Hellig Usvart, and it’s such spot-on second-wave black metal with lo-fi recording, throaty vocals, and song titles like “Drink From The Chalice of Blood” and “Invert the Inverted Cross.” If nothing else, it proves that, at its core, black metal is just theatrical.