Beyond The Turntable

Skillet's Alien Youth was their fourth studio album. The Alien Youth DVD offers an unplugged mini-concert featuring four songs from the CD: Alien Youth, One Real Thing, Kill Me Heal Me and You Are My Hope. The concert, recorded at Ardent Studios with an audience of young teens, concludes with Best Kept Secret from Skillet's Invincible album.

Singer/guitarist John Cooper is joined by his wife Korey on keyboards, Lori Peters on drums, and Ben Kasica on lead guitar. The acoustically-oriented versions of Skillet's normally rock songs work quite well. After the concert, John leads about a ten-minute Bible study (shot in black & white footage) with the young teens. He examines 1 Peter 2:11's exhortation to sexual purity: Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. NASB

Other extras on the DVD include the Skillet Photo Gallery, offering about 30 stills from the unplugged concert, and the Discography section, displaying the album covers from the five Skillet projects: Skillet (1996), Hey You, I Love Your Soul (1998), Invincible (2000), Ardent Worship: Skillet Live (2000) and Alien Youth (2001).

The Alien Youth DVD is for Skillet fans. It doesn't offer as many extras as most DVD projects, but the Bible study would be great for a teen group, and the Best Kept Secret concept video is one of the more unique and edgy Christian videos, geared to those who like a Matrix sort of futuristic leather-and-black-lipstick look.

Visit: Skillet, Alien Youth and Ardent Records.