Skillet -- Alien Youth

8/10

Skillet returned in August of 2001 with their third release in 18 months, Alien Youth. Alien Youth marks a shift away from the more dancey, electronic vibes of their previous studio album, Invincible, to a more hard rock sound. Considering Invincible's slightly stagnant feel, this is a welcome change.
I remember picking this album up a couple weekends before 9/11, and being pleasantly surprised by its content. Actually, that was a pretty lovely weekend that's been lost to time, considering the cataclysmic shift a couple Tuesdays later. As such, Alien Youth is a sort of final Christian hard rock statement of the short-lived, optimistic, pre-9/11 early 00's. It's super crunchy, and for large stretches, the best version of Skillet, with some huge hooks (the one 30 seconds into "Eating Me Away" nearly blew my head off the first time I heard it), heaviness (new drummer, Lori Peters, is far more of a smasher than the more subtle Trey McClurkin), it's got a lot of atmosphere (the brilliant "The Thirst Is Taking Over" sounds like it was recorded on the banks of an underground river), and John and Korey Cooper's frequently dueling vocals are excellent. It does eventually lose a little steam at the beginning of its final third, with the more industrial rock of "Stronger" and "Rippin' Me Off" sounding more like youth group fodder than the more cohesive hard rock/rock ballad balance of the other ten tracks.
Time had also forged the band into an immensely powerful and tight live act by this point. I saw them on 01/12/02 at some enormous countryside baptist church on the Alien Youth tour, and they blew the roof off the place. At one point, John Cooper said, "I feel guilty about how hard we just rocked." He wasn't wrong--the whole set was a sort of headbangers worship service, and I loved it. Here's some pics from that night, taken with the best early 00's digital camera $30 could buy, right before Skillet hit it big.
First a couple pics of the band performing:


This night involved multiple Nicsperiment luminaries, including Real-life Giant Walking Pal, (smooth ladies-man) Five Iron-Shawn, The Jelly Bean, and of course, Nicsperiment mainstay, The Rabbit, who is making a strangely unhinged smile in the back of this non-Nicsperiment-including group picture.

Here I am wearing a Blindside shirt I bought at a P.O.D./Blindside show a couple months before. Real-life Giant Walking Pal named this shirt "Goat Legs," and looking at it in the "My wife says these are too small for me now, but I just can't get rid them" t-shirt drawer, the name seems apt.

In line with their personalities, the very in-your-face style of RLGWP landed him in the below pic with John and Korey Cooper, while the more laid-back, "I'll just hang out over here" Five-Iron Shawn wanted to take a pic with the supporting players, Lori Peters and Ben Kasica. Unfortunately for Shawn, that's when I started wobbling.


I remember getting into an argument with Kasica about what the best songs on Skillet's second album, Hey, You, I Love Your Soul were. Not like an intense argument that I still remember word-for-word nearly 17-years later or anything, but he was definitely wrong.


2001 Ardent
1. Alien Youth 4:08
2. Vapor 3:38
3. Earth Invasion 4:47
4. You Are My Hope 4:15
5. Eating Me Away 3:37
6. Kill Me, Heal Me 3:35
7. The Thirst Is Taking Over 6:31
8. One Real Thing 3:36
9. Stronger 4:06
10. Rippin' Me Off 4:46
11. Will You Be There (Falling Down) 5:09
12. Come My Way 5:01