I could go on forever but I'll stick to three smaller names from the '90s.
I go on about
Failure all the time in the music threads. All of their records are great, but their third album, Fantastic Planet (1996), which could be described as grunge-prog fusion, is IMO one of the best records of the 90s and didn't get the attention it deserved at the time. I was blown away when I first heard it, and not until years later when social media came around did I realize there were others who felt the same way. The band broke up about a year after Fantastic Planet came out due to drug problems and creative differences, but has drawn well on the road since reuniting in 2014. During Failure's inactivity, A Perfect Circle covered one of their songs, which helped raise their profile/enhance their cult status.
Sergeant Politeness / Segue One
Another favorite '90s record of mine is Fast Stories ... from Kid Coma by
Truly. They were a Seattle band with a grunge pedigree (including Soundgarden's original bassist and Screaming Trees' original drummer) that took grunge into serious psychedelic/stoner territory. Fast Stories, released in 1995, is 71 minutes of sonic bliss that uncovers something new with every listen. Record company indifference and changing musical trends in the late '90s doomed them to a short career. I don't talk about the band a whole lot in the music threads because they're not on Spotify.
Tragic Telepathic (Soul Slasher)
Seattle's
Love Battery released five albums in the '90s, the first three on Sub Pop. Just before the release of Dayglo, the second and best one, they were written up in Rolling Stone as an emerging artist to watch. Their sound is like a cross between punk rock and motorcycle engines, so sonically violent their guitars could be. Their sound also owed a lot of the garage rock and early psychedelia of the '60s, and they were a fantastic live band that I got to see twice. A falling out with Sub Pop led to the mishandling of their third album, and by the time of their fourth (and only major-label) record, tastes had shifted away from their kind of stuff.
See Your Mind