Of the various theme weeks I cover on the blog, I think my favorite is the Decades series. That’s where I dive into the same year across four decades (1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, for example) and write about noteworthy album releases.

I like it because it gives me a chance to both highlight some of my personal favorites and dig into albums I missed along the way. And jumping ahead a decade at a time allows me to explore different popular music movements.

But enough patting myself on the back… let’s get to the latest installment. Most recently I’ve covered 1971, ’81 and ’91, which brings me to 2001. As always, I’ll count down my ten favorite albums from the year before writing about ten critically and/or commercially popular albums I don’t know.

At #10 is the short-lived band Witness with their sophomore album Under the Sea, a stellar collection of Americana, country-rock and pop songs, a highly unlikely mix given the band’s roots in Northern England.

I’ve written a couple of times about how I first heard this album when it was playing in a record store and bought it on the spot. A serendipitous discovery.

Witness split up just a year or so later, never releasing another album, though lead singer Gerard Starkie continues to record as a solo act.