Union Underground, The - ...An Education in Rebellion (2000)^{Release ID: 29456}

When discussing music, there will always be the topic of underrated or forgotten artists. For me, when it comes to the nu metal scene from the late 90’s to early 2000’s, there’s always one band that comes to mind. And that band is Stuck Mojo.

After that, it’s The Union Underground!

‘…An Education in Rebellion’ is the first (and to date, only) studio album by Texas quartet, The Union Underground. Released in 2000, this is an absolutely fantastic 34-minute slab of nu metal. Full of short, energetic anthems, there’s no messing around here, just one banger after another.

The band have their sound absolutely nailed, with amazingly heavy and crunchy guitars and some fantastic vocals that perfectly blends clean singing and shouting, but with enough aggression to mesh the two together flawlessly. This is all emphasised by the incredibly polished song-writing and punchy production that puts these guys ahead of so many of their contemporaries, and produces one of the best sounding and most pumping albums from that era.

However, despite doing the opening theme for WWE Raw for a number of years, and being hand-picked to tour with Marilyn Manson, The Union Underground just never really took off. From what I recall, they were never heavily featured on TV or radio, never really received much (if any) magazine coverage, nor were they prominent in any major tours or festivals. And it’s a shame, because they certainly deserved to be much bigger than they were.

With an abundance of unforgettable anthems, such as ‘South Texas Deathride’, ‘Bitter Man’, ‘Until You Crack’, ‘Drivel’, ‘Natural High’, ‘Revolution Man’, and their biggest hit, ‘Turn Me On Mr. Deadman’, it’s a travesty that we never heard more from these guys, as this album truly is an absolute gem from the nu metal days, and still sounds as fantastic today as it did back in 2000.