Editing Assemblage 23 (section)

===Late 1990s – early 2000===
Shear signed a deal in 1999 with the Canadian label Gashed! for a full-length album (''Contempt'', released in November 1999). ''Contempt'' ranked #42 on the DAC Top Albums of 2000 chart in Germany.<ref name="dac-albums-00">{{cite web |title=DAC Top 50 2000 |url=http://www.public-propaganda.de/charts/1999/dac_alb50.html |website=Trendcharts oHG |publisher=AMC Alster Musik Consulting GmbH |access-date=20 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010211140354/http://www.public-propaganda.de/charts/2000/dac_alb50.html |archive-date=11 February 2001 |date=2001 |url-status=dead}}</ref> A second album, ''Failure'', followed in March 2001 and was released by Gashed in North America and Accession Records in Europe. A single from ''Failure'', "Disappoint", was released on Accession in October 2001 and ranked #42 on the DAC Top Singles chart for 2001.<ref name="dac-singles-01">{{cite web |title=DAC Top 50 Singles 2001 |url=http://www.public-propaganda.de/charts/jahrescharts2001/DACSingle.html |website=Trendcharts oHG |publisher=AMC Alster Musik Consulting GmbH |access-date=20 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020210031908/http://www.public-propaganda.de/charts/jahrescharts2001/DACSingle.html |archive-date=10 Feb 2002 |date=2002 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The song dealt with Shear's sense of loss after his father's suicide on October 28, 1999, and features a sample from the film [[In the Line of Fire]].

After falling out with Gashed Records following ''Failure'', Shear signed with US label [[Metropolis Records]] (US) later in 2001; Metropolis re-released ''Contempt'' and ''Failure'' in November.  A remix release, ''Addendum'', was also released in November only on Accession. By this point, Assemblage 23 had become fairly popular within the EBM genre and closely catalogued alongside the "futurepop" genre, which Shear himself characterized — possibly tongue-in-cheek — as "mostly people who can't sing, over 90s-era trance patches."<ref name="assimilate">{{cite book |last1=Reed |first1=S. Alexander |title=Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music |year=2013|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199832583|oclc=1147729910|via=the Internet Archive|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/assimilatecritic0000reed|page=296}}</ref>

The third album, ''Defiance'', was released in October 2002 on Metropolis and Accession, preceded by the single "Document", in September of that year.

Assemblage 23 released a fourth album, ''Storm'', in October 2004 with singles "Let the Wind Erase Me" in August and  "Ground" in November. "Ground" spent eight weeks on the DAC Singles chart peaking at #2.<ref name="dac-singles-05">{{cite web |title=DAC Top 100 Singles 2005 |url=http://charts.trendcharts.de/jahrescharts2005/DAC/index.html |website=Trendcharts oHG |publisher=AMC Alster Musik Consulting GmbH |access-date=20 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080423203707/http://charts.trendcharts.de/jahrescharts2005/DAC/index.html |archive-date=23 April 2008 |date=2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref>