We'll keep this dead simple: if you're unfamiliar with these killer records from the year 2000, we strongly recommend you remedy this forthwith.
Groop Dogdrill - Every Six Seconds
When Groop Dogdrill first emerged in the mid '90s, all quiffs, 'wifebeater' vests, brothel creepers and prison-ink tattoos, they were largely patronised as a '50s rockabilly pastiche, with their early singles on former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey's EXP label conjuring up visions of flick-knives, fisticuffs and messy lads' nights out in run-down seaside towns. But the Doncaster trio - vocalist/guitarist Pete Spiby, bassist Damo Fowkes and drummer Hugh Kelly - were a much sharper, more sophisticated group than they were ever given credit for, and their excellent second album, Every Six Seconds, is a brilliantly-observed, unflinching dissection of toxic masculinity, lad culture, gender roles, class, sexual politics and short-sighted, reductive stereotyping. Frontman Spiby is still fighting the good fight with Black Spiders, but this over-looked and under-rated album is his finest hour.
Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows
Though their earliest influences came from the noisier end of the 1980s US underground scene - as evidenced by their joyously ramshackle, irresistible debut mini album Captain - it wasn't long before Idlewild's superior songwriting skills and melodic sensibilities had UK music journalists likening the Edinburgh band to a young R.E.M., with similar world-beating potential. 100 Broken Windows is the sweet spot between these two poles, with thrillingly direct singles Little Discourage and Actually It's Darkness sitting alongside more meditative, sombre album tracks such as Quiet Crown and Bronze Medal. The album cracked the UK Top 20, peaking at number 15, and the band were relentlessly championed by both Kerrang! and NME - even scoring US talk show appearances - but true mainstream success remained elusive. Shame.
Sona Fariq - Sona Fariq
An outrageously good live band, East London's Sona Fariq were pitched somewhere Rage Against The Machine, Asian Dub Foundation, Bad Brains and the pre-John Frusciante Red Hot Chili Peppers. Produced by Chris Sheldon (Therapy?/Biffy Clyro), the group's explosive self-titled debut album boasted a clutch of killer singles - Drop The Bomb and Love You Crazy among them - but despite strong media support, the quartet were rather drowned out by louder, less cerebral nu metal acts at the time. Whatever, their self-titled debut remains a cult classic.
Sunna - One Minute Science
The brain-child of Londoner Jon Harris, Sunna released their debut album on Massive Attack's record label Melankolic, and had their biggest break touring with A Perfect Circle: if you want a simplistic reference for their arty, moody, industrial-tinged alt-metal then imagining the Bristol band existing in the hinterlands between those two groups isn't the worst idea. Alternatively, you could place the group alongside VAST and Khoma in the - pretentiousness alert! -'thinking man's metal' bracket, but that's possibly not much help if you've never heard either of those equally under-rated cult collectives. Whatever, great band, great album, great pity it's not better known.
Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
While it would be stupid to claim that Primal Scream's sixth studio album went under the radar - it charted at number 3 in the UK, and was bested only by Queens Of The Stone Age's Rated R - in NME's Albums of the Year list, it's been greatly overshadowed in the ensuing years by the Scottish band's most acclaimed record Screamadelica, and indeed by cult classic Vanishing Point. In truth, like some of the greatest rock and roll albums in history, it teeters on the edge of ridiculousness at times - Swastika Eyes, anyone? - but at it's darkest, dirtiest and most exciting it brilliantly evokes the exhilaration, fear, panic and out-of-control euphoria of the most ill-advised but memorable drug trips, with a load of classic Bobby Gillespie mumbo-jumbo about 'The Man', multinationals, and the military-industrial complex for good measure, Intense, and then some.
![Primal Scream - Swastika Eyes (No Strobe Version) [Official Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AbUSeZwGvgg/maxresdefault.jpg)
