Metal’s greatest one-album wonders

In 1997 nu-metal was barely out of infancy, and was yet to produce the cavalcade of characters that it became known for, which makes the fact that we only had a brief moment with Snot all the more galling. Debut album Get Some is full of funk rock perfection, punk attitude and the kind of riffs Wes Borland would sell his granny for. All tied together by the imperious presence of frontman Lynn Strait, those in the know knew he was a star in the making, sadly his death from a traffic collision a year later meant it never happened.

Recorded in ‘86, the one and only Repulsion album was released via Carcass frontman Jeff Walker’s Necrosis Records imprint three years later. Underground diehards already knew the band from the tape-trading scene, however: formed in 1984, the Michigan quartet arguably invented grindcore single-handedly with their early demos, inspiring a generation of noise-hungry metalheads in the process. Horrified remains an unassailable benchmark and one of the most righteously ferocious records ever made. No follow-up necessary.

Off the back of three genuine Sepultura classics in Beneath The Remains, Arise and Chaos A.D., Max Cavalera’s stock couldn’t be much higher. So when he teamed up with Alex Newport from Nottingham noise provocatuers Fudge Tunnel as Nailbomb, fans expected something special. And they got it. Point Blank is a frightening record, with Cavalera’s love of early death and thrash metal being amped up and combined with Newport’s ear for industrialised, avant-garde extremity. Wasted Away has become an underground classic, and song like Cockroaches and Blind And Lost still sound as heavy as anything you care to mention today.

Chris Cornell stepped away from Soundgarden to record this tribute to his former room-mate, Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, who died from a heroin overdose a year earlier. But what could have been an epic downer turned out to be one of the greatest albums of the grunge era. Cornell dialled down the wailing, imbuing Say Hello 2 Heaven and the Eddie Vedder-assisted Hunger Strike with a nobility that was alien to the plaid-shirted hordes, while Reach Down was a glorious exercise in rocking-out-as-emotional release. Grunge had never been so moving, and it would never be again.

Led by Kyle Thomas, former frontman of New Orleans groove metal pioneers Exhorder, Floodgate only made one album, but what an album it was: a fearsome, heroic, brooding assault of swamp metal riffs and Marlboro-ravaged bellowing. Despite being released by powerhouse metal label Roadrunner, it smashed headfirst into a wall of apathy,

Zakk Wylde had been Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist for five years when the Prince Of Darkness announced his ‘retirement’ from touring (somewhat prematurely). So Zakk launched this Southern rock outfit – his first experience as singer and frontman – which he originally named Lynyrd Skynhead. Traces of metal are discernible in Horse Called War’s swampy stomp, but banjos, mandolins and mouth organs predominate on P&G’s one-off Geffen LP.

The late, great Chuck Schuldiner’s career was a constant series of evolutions. By 1999, he’d left behind both his original band, Death, and the genre they’d christened. His new band, Control Denied, even found the erstwhile Evil Chuck handing vocal duties to operatic frontman Tim Aymar. Death metal fans grumbled that he’d taken the progressive/power metal leanings too far, but this was Chuck doing exactly what he wanted, just as he’d always done. Sadly, it would prove not just to be their only album but also Schuldiner’s last – he died two years later.