Here we go again: Before we get to ranking ten underrated albums from ten underrated Fueled by Ramen Records bands, we have a few ground rules for you unabashedly public “indie” kids with shamefully private “mainstream” taste: No bands that are obviously too big to be underrated like Fall Out Boy or even The Academy Is…, and no acts who solely released music in the form of EPs, split-releases, and/or compilations via FBR will be mentioned below. We know, the self-titled Jimmy Eat World EP is perfect, but it’s not here on a technicality. The full-length LP may be dead to some, but not to us.
Also, alphabetical rankings are for idiots, so please enjoy this alphabetical list. In closing, our opinions are objectively/subjectively wrong, and we suck (and so do these ranking articles that you still keep reading).
Ann Beretta “Bitter Tongues” (1998)
If we would’ve left this gruff, pop punk adjacent 1998 release off the list, we would’ve gotten an amplitude of hate from your literally bitter tongues, as this selection is one of the most underrated of the bunch. It’s so underrated you probably haven’t even heard of it, which makes it cooler. Furthermore, you don’t have to read on if you don’t want more fuel sprayed on your ever-growing metaphorical fire, but we know that you and your masochistic and spiteful selves will!
Days Away “Mapping An Invisible World” (2005)
Days Away’s truly excellent 2005 LP “Mapping An Invisible World” is truly the one that truly got away. After releasing several EPs, Langhorne, Pennsylvania’s own favorite sons signed to Fueled by Ramen Records, and was poised to become huge like several labelmates before them. Sadly for the world, things just never panned out that way; it happens. Despite selling tens of copies, a lot of your favorite bands revered and took great influence from this particular full-length, and if you had a chance to catch the band two years prior on tour with Something Corporate, RX Bandits, and Mae, you’re much more than an analog boy in a digital world. FYI: Check out Good Old War if you haven’t done so, but knowing you punk rock princesses, you spin at least one of their LPs every morning.
Forgive Durden “Wonderland” (2006)
The difficult-to-pin-down-in-the-best-way band known as Forgive Durden justifiably gets a lot of flowers critically for their ambitious and final LP “Razia’s Shadow: A Musical.” However, the band’s debut studio album “Wonderland” deserves much, much more ears and much, much less words in its song titles, but we digress. Basically, if you’re in the mood for a combination of a Gatsby’s American Dream influence and a hearty dose of French Woods theater camp, this record is for you. In closing, like the first monkey shot into space, “Fight Club” jokes are knowingly and admittedly low hanging fruit, but maybe self-destruction is the answer.
The Friday Night Boys “Off The Deep End” (2009)
Easily the worst band name on this list, Fairfax, Virginia’s The Friday Night Boys somehow defied the odds of said moniker and made a banger of a full-length known as 2009’s “Off The Deep End.” If catchiness is your forte, the album is filled with hit after hit. If it isn’t, you probably don’t like Smash Mouth, and should stop listening to music altogether. Furthermore, lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Andrew Goldstein the Easter Egger has been writing and producing bangers from bangable artists since the band went defunct for such huge acts MGK, Katy Perry, and even the greatest of all time, Celine Dion.!
The Hippos “Forget the World” (1997)
Technology must be very far behind here, so we don’t have another answer as to why the hell this perfect ska-punk/third-wave LP from The Hippos called “Forget the World” isn’t on DSPs. PLEASE fix that John Janick and/or Vinnie Fiorello… Despite this release being the oldest mentioned here, 1997 wasn’t THAT long ago! Also, the alumni from this band is quite prodigious, so this particular album deserves so much more notoriety; Google the ninety-seven piece if you know how to do so, rudeboy/rudegirl. Anyway, the band eventually signed to a major label and added about 1999 keyboards to their lineup as ska was becoming less en vogue than a Salt-N-Pepa feature.
Powerspace “The Kicks Of Passion” (2007)
You should know that sadly passion isn’t always rewarded, and somehow Powerspace got lost in the shuffle with their more successful label peers Cobra Starship and Trace Cyrus’ not-so-surprisingly popular non-FBR band Public Transportation Stopping Place. Pity. As evidenced by our listings above and below, FBR had the power-pop/pop-rock/danceable but not like The BeeGees market covered in the late-90s/aughts, and 2007’s “The Kicks Of Passion” is somehow both the paradox of no exception and the only exception. Weird. Chicago is so two-plus years ago, and Powerspace certainly and unquestionably got the Windy City shaft.
Recover “Rodeo And Picasso” (2001)
Easily the most frenetic and heavy studio album mentioned here, Austin, Texas’ Recover released their debut LP “Rodeo And Picasso” via Fueled by Ramen Records in 2001 to a flurry of livejournal entries and at least one absoluteunk.net post from your mother’s deceptively heavy computer. Eventually signing with Strummer Recordings/Universal Records one full-length album later, the band sadly never rose to the heights of former tour mates My Chemical Romance and AFI, and imploded shortly after. Still, “Rodeo And Picasso” doesn’t get as much love as its Fiddler Records follow-up 2002 EP “Ceci N’est Pas Recover,” perhaps because of a combination of bad timing and its extremely pretentious-in-the-best-way album title. Young love is now old, so dust off your Kazaa mp3s for “Rodeo And Picasso,” and relisten twenty-two years later with noticeably hairier ears!
The Stereo “Three Hundred” (1999)
Imagine an early-aughts Patrick Stump (or Stumph if you’re feeling sinister and/or a stickler for accuracy) sang for Weezer for a song on the “Mallrats” soundtrack, and you’ve got The Stereo’s smart and succinct 1999 full-length “Three Hundred.” To add further credence to the Weezer love, this record opens with a song called “Devotion.” Mic drop for that deep cut and for us being smart enough to reference it. Yeah. Fun fact: This band formed in the wake of two ska-core bands Animal Chin and The Impossibles, and in an act of defiance against your acidic yet dulled senses, neither of which is mentioned any other time in this piece. You hate us so much everyday, so we might as well keep our priorities intact.
The Swellers “Good For Me” (2011)
Flint, Michigan’s The Swellers’ 2011 studio album “Good For Me” is the most recent FBR record listed, and had a minor hit in “The Best I Ever Had” (just look at its lofty amount of YouTube views and even larger Spotify stream count), but sadly the band only recorded one more full-length afterwards before hanging their hats, and it wasn’t for FBR. Bummer, but they’d do it all again. Produced by Bill Stevenson of Black Flag/Descendents/ ALL and Jason Livermore of Wretch Like Me, “Good For Me” sounds like it was made by four kids who grew up loving Fat Wreck Chords’ compilations in the best way and saved a bundle on insurance by switching to Geico. Like Days Away, a lot of bands you likely dig privately dug this band publicly. Bummer: The Sequel.
VersaEmerge “Fixed at Zero” (2010)
Along with the also-underrated-but-sadly-non-Fueled-By-Ramen band Gob, Port St. Lucie, Florida’s VersaEmerge is one of the better acts to record the oft-covered song “Paint It Black”. While the band’s lone studio LP “Fixed at Zero” does not contain said Stones cover, it is a front-to-back lush cinematic masterpiece that will appeal to fans of the two-part conflict of interest conundrum of both Circa Survive and Saosin; bury your head and act appalled.
Conspiracy theories aside, and we know that you neckbeards in the comments have many regarding them and a particularly unsuccessful singer known as Hayley Williams, this LP did not blow the band up, and that’s toxic/what you get!
We heard that Juggalos are deceptively nice, but we know that Slipknot has influenced more bands than said ICP fans can count. One album legally had to be ranked last, and this 2008 Slipknot LP had to take the cold black cupcake. Still, even a “bad” Slipknot LP is good sans quotes, and “All Hope Is Gone,” despite being a disjointed listen with more figurative misses than literal hits contains one of their most beloved singles, “Psychosocial.” If you don’t know what psychosocial means, read on: According to Wikipedia, the gospel of truth, the psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. Say that three times fast; Slipknot = smart.
At first glance, “The End, So Far” reads like it is going to be a combination of a farewell/hiatus/cash grab LP and a greatest hits/rarities/B-sides album. Once one views the actual track listing, the fact that the band ended the twelve-track record and their shortest LP altogether with a song “Finale” may confirm the initial first half of our posit but cancels out the second half. Still, regardless of what’s next for the band 2023-beyond, this acidic release is ambitious with a capital “A” for Adderall, but isn’t as memorable as the following five for fighting. We hear that “The End, So Far” is the band’s last for Roadrunner, but something tells us that Wile E. Coyote may have something else up his sleeve.
Self-awareness alert: Album number five for the band is listed at number five here. Whoa. Hot take alert: If entries #7 or #6 contained the band’s best single of their career (this album’s “The Devil in I”) then our ranking list would’ve been different, and that’s NOT us being sarcastic. Yep. Furthermore, the gap between “.5: The Gray Chapter” and its predecessor “All Hope Is Gone” is the band’s longest between releases, and said delay was for the best, as heard in the songs here. However, we will likely be a devil to all of you skeptics and negative ones with this far-too-high or way-too-low ranking, as even if we listed these seven disasterpieces in the order that you agreed with, you’d still try to override and bitch, bitch, bitch. Tell us we’re wrong, but that will prove us right.
Despite being the only Slipknot release to come out during the critical darling/cum dump/surprising-also-not-surpising-hero-to-Christians/former game show host known as Donald Trump’s first and hopefully only presidential term, 2019’s “We Are Not Your Kind” is the band’s best album to come out after 2004, and truly deserves more praise as an entity. We know that old-school phonies who claim to be Slipknot heads will likely scoff at this modern record’s high placement because what is new always sucks. Always.
Welcome: The famous or infamous trilogy starts now, and we’re kicking it off with its end, the bronze-medalist known as Slipknot’s monster LP “Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). Self-awareness alert part deux: Album number three for the band is listed at number three here. Valid. Whoa and hot take alert part deux: Albums 3-1 have NO “skip it” section. Nil. Before we get into the specifics of “Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), we’d like to remark that we’re still unsure why the “subliminal verses” verbiage in the (actual) album title is in parentheses. Anyway, the legendary Rick Rubin produced this specific Slipknot record, and his epic beard shows such brilliance in the songs! So, so good and so, so brutal. We’re likely going to shock/disappoint/cause a double take next, but that’s just par for the course.
The whole thing WE think is sick, the whole thing WE think is sick: We’ve been not-so-casually waiting to perish by bleeding out for this specific placement since the start of this article since none of you Slipknot-obsessed readers reading this surprisingly/unsurprisingly readable piece has a life. Still, this record is one of the finest metal/metal-adjacent. Slipknot stormed the gates of the aggressive music community with their self-titled debut LP in 1999 and twenty-four years later is still rocking your faces and masks off. All nine members of the band infected your ears from this album’s beginning at second one to the ending at sixty minutes and fifteen seconds, and it still holds up today. Wear your t-shirts with pride and get ready to scream “Are you reeeeeady” like the band’s peers in Trust Company.
Last hot take here as there is no room for any more plague-inducing scorchers that will forever cause us to be hated: “Iowa,” as an album title but not as a state, should get slightly more love than “Slipknot,” as an album title but not as the band itself. That was truly a mouthful, but speaking of that region, we don’t envy Corey Taylor’s throat after recording this guttural, guttural studio album. Since 2001, the vocalist for Stone Sour’s voice has never sounded the same, and while we rightfully praise his pain and effort, we can’t legally vouch for others trying to do the same to their respective voices: Sing gently, singers, as everything ends. In closing, “Iowa” is the polar opposite of a sophomore slump and deserves a revisit twenty-two years later.
All the best dreamers, from Jay Gatsby to Don Draper to Robert Zimmerman to Michael Jackson, got their start in the Midwest. You’ll do well to have been born here.
Holy shit, it will inspire you—and get your ass on that no-other-option bus to Tinseltown. Of course, when you make it, you won’t cite “Oprah” as the reason you dropped forensic accounting to make it big in L.A. But that’s the reason. That’s the reason.
So many talents have squandered their shot to make it big because their ticket said “Albany” and not “Los Angeles.” Yes, they smashed the Albany scene, but have you heard of them?
Studies show that odds of making it in Hollywood decrease exponentially after failing to find Slash within the first 48 hours.
Pretty simple when you get right down to it. This town rewards talent, so if you have 30 chart toppers ready to go then everyone will welcome you with open arms.
You’ll need Uncle Ned and Aunt Sheila’s house on weekends when you’re out of laundry and money for CVS-brand Zoloft. Jeez, dude. Ten dollars really was a pretty silly idea, wasn’t it? You can’t even buy a sandwich for 10 fucking dollars.
At least while you get back on your feet. A lot of record moguls will hire you, and it’s not impolite to slip them a demo on your way out.
Sure, you can afford better with your new gig as a high end escort. But come on, dude! All your faves roughed it like this before they cut a deal with Geffen.
Badass, right? Plus, whoever sticks with you through this vagabond stage—that’s your band. Shuffle instruments accordingly.
Shit—this probably shoulda been number 1. If you’re ugly you’re going to want to stay away from L.A. altogether. Consider staying in the midwest, all the ugliest people on the world already live there so you might even be considered somewhat attractive there.
This is a solid debut, and the band shows off their aptitude for the good old loud-quiet-loud formula right out of the gate, as well as drummer Dave Turncrantz’ ability to incorporate understated syncopation into unexpected moments in almost every song. This album sounds like exactly what it is: an entirely enjoyable proof-of-concept for what the band will go on to do. It’s just that they’ll go on to do it even better.
This record went in two directions at once: The soft parts got softer and the heavy parts got heavier. That’s a great concept in theory, and there are some absolute ragers on here, not to mention a few moments where you might be tempted to dig your lava lamp out of the attic. The album’s structure was allegedly inspired by Pink Floyd’s “Animals,” right down to the bookending tracks “Memoriam” and “Memorial.” For any band aspiring to play eclectic instrumental metal, this might be a masterpiece. Russian Circles’ discography is so close to flawless that we’ve somehow put it at #7.
The production on this record shows just how hot Russian Circles was at this point. Not only was Kurt Fucking Ballou handling the engineering, but much of the tracking was done at Steve Goddamn Albini’s Electrical Audio studio. And unsurprisingly, as with just about everything Ballou touches, the sound is just absolutely impeccable, especially the drums. That man just knows exactly how to mic a kit, and it helps that the drumwork on this record is just dynamite. Exhibit A: track #2, “Arluck.” Ballou puts the drums just a notch higher in the mix than you might expect, and the outcome is magical. The band also does more with transitions between songs than in the past, creating a seamlessness that is fairly common in the genre, but that reaches its apex here. The segue from the gentle “Ghost on High” to the crushing “Sinaia” is so perfectly-executed that it might as well be a single track. The end of the record starts to feel a little more generic – the chuggy riffs in “Quartered” are a little uninspired – but again, “generic” Russian Circles is better than a whole lot of other stuff you could be listening to.
Adding a strings section to a metal record is always a dicey proposition. You risk sounding too soft or too pretentious or too much like you’re trying to hang with bands whose genre tags include words like “symphonic.” But unsurprisingly, Russian Circles nails it, adding cello by Allison Chesley and violin by Susan Voelz. Their contributions don’t change the fundamental shape of the band’s sound; they just add depth and nuance, which is pretty much exactly what you should expect from these sorts of collaborations. Bassist Brian Cook showcases his ability to shift on a dime from reliable rhythm section journeyman to standout virtuoso. This album feels like a bleak but oddly pretty winter afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s, and we cannot more highly recommend having it in your ears while you take a long walk in the woods.
Now that we’ve hit the top half of the list, we could easily and happily put the remaining records in almost any order and be happy with it. First off, this album is NOT a recording of all those dudes on the cover singing a metal version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” so be careful about gifting this to your veteran grandfather. We learned that one the hard way. No, “Station” is an outstanding introduction to Russian Circles’ unique sound, which is to say – though this is generally the kiss of death in underground and heavy music – it’s pretty accessible. It also includes “Harper Lewis,” perhaps Russian Circles’ signature song, an immaculately-constructed piece of post-metal that features guitarist Mike Sullivan’s understated virtuosity at finger-tapping and knowing exactly how and when to use his loop pedals. Speaking of, it’s kinda odd that we’ve gotten this far in the list without even mentioning Sullivan, who, as guitarist, has a sort of de facto leadership role in the band. But his ability to do exactly what each song needs, which often means stepping back and letting Cook and Turncrantz run the show, is a big part of what makes this band great.
It’s easy to think of Russian Circles primarily as a studio band because, well, they make kick-ass records. But also because their sound is dense and layered and they only have three full-time members, so they obviously have to rely pretty substantially on multitracking. But they are still crushingly heavy live, thanks largely to how well Sullivan knows his way around a pedalboard. This live set from Belgium captures that brilliantly.
There was a critical consensus when this album came out that the songs felt a little more feral than fussed-over, and that rough-around-the-edges quality will be pretty apparent by the time the album is halfway over. The chuggy bass works perfectly on tracks like “Vorel,” coming across more as an organic outgrowth of the songwriting than like a post-metal take on “Kill ‘Em All,” which is sometimes more the case on their earliest work. There are also some really intense mid-song tempo shifts that briefly make us think of technical death metal, a genre that we can imagine these guys listen to, but would never ever describe them as. We wouldn’t argue with anyone who made this their #1 or #2 pick.
Holy HELL, did they ever go hard on this one. This was Russian Circles’ pandemic album, and it shows in every single note. It’s the sound of a creative mind in isolation scratching ferociously at the walls. We have to imagine that, at some point, they were tempted to title it “Quarantine” because that’s the best possible description of its aesthetic. The YouTuber critics at Thralls of Metal put it best with two perfect encapsulations of “Gnosis’” whole deal: “The riffs in half of these songs are out to hurt you” and (paraphrased): “I never thought I’d stank-face to Russian Circles.” We couldn’t put it better. The one outlier, “O Braonáin,” a dreamy 105-second lullaby, sounds like something you could play at an Irish funeral, but shouldn’t, because when the first notes of “Betrayal” hit without warning, the deceased’s family would be very upset with you. This record is awesome, and a legitimate contender for #1.
This was probably Russian Circles’ heaviest work before “Gnosis” dropped over a decade later, and it is just about perfect. The songwriting is top-notch. The see-sawing dynamics – loud and soft, abrasive and sonorous, grandiose and modest – are cohesive and organically intertwined. And album opener “309” is an unassailable masterpiece, a twisty and complex 9-minute scorcher that brings together thrash, doom, ambient, and an overarching apocalyptic sensibility that carries throughout the whole record.
