9 Great one-and-done metal albums of the ’90s

The ’90s were a productive period for heavy metal. The decade saw the rise of progressive metal both from the wing of Dream Theater and their spawn as well as the advances made by thrash and avant-metal bands around the same time. Black metal and death metal both were coming into their own, pushing themselves away from their roots in thrash to develop their own strong identities. Industrial metal, hinted at in the closing years of the ’80s, began to emerge in proper, leading in part to nu-metal, for better or for worse. Funk metal and rap metal went from one-off songs to entire projects, some of which were all-time greats and others less so. The waning years of thrash likewise saw the rise of groove metal, which would produce spawn as disparate as Meshuggah and the southern rock-tinged approach that would later develop into the sludge metal breakthrough of the mid-2000s. American metalcore would birth two wings in a single decade, giving us both the metallic hardcore of Converge and Earth Crisis as well as the melodic death metal-driven wing of the sound that would dominate metal radio in the following decade.

In truth, while the ’70s and ’80s were in many ways the roots of heavy metal as we know it, the ’90s saw perhaps the most development of methodologies and genre spaces the genre has seen before or since. Some of these will be explored here during ’90s month elsewhere, from our main list to this month’s metal column. Some, frankly, does not need highlighting, given how recurrent it still is throughout culture. Here, we would like to highlight a curated selection of groups that released only a single album in the decade. For the most part, these are bands that released no other record after this period; for some, it was their final statement for a decade plus, appearing only after some great time later. Some of these groups are outliers to the broader development of heavy metal; some are shockingly pivotal, key figures to the overall tale. Here we have six selections (and three short bonuses on the end) to sate your curiosity. We have left off certain groups like Nailbomb, the short-lived intermediary group between Max Cavalera’s departure from Sepultura and his founding of Soulfly, nu-metal luminaries Snot, and Death-continuation Control Denied, dISEMBOWELMENT and others not out of lack of respect but instead a lack of space. Peruse those groups later at your leisure and, if you’d like a second installment of this list of great one-and-done metal albums diving into a few more, sound off.

Thergothon – Stream from the Heavens

A confession: I don’t like this record that much. So why, in a piece with such limited space, am I discussing it? It’s simple: In the canon of single-record bands, this is one of the most influential that extreme metal has ever seen. Death-doom had been a thing for some time when Thergothon began releasing material, first with their demo and then with this, their sole proper LP, but it was with this album that funeral doom as a distinct wing of that broader fusion of genres came truly into being. Other groups, perhaps greater, would come in their wake: Skepticism, Unholy, Ahab, Mournful Congregation, Shape of Despair, and perhaps most significantly Bell Witch—you name it. But despite the later developments made in this space, it was this particular record that truly opened the door to that sound.

The key addition was the fusion of the very Finnish frog vocals with organ-backed death-doom riffs, removing the tendency toward frill and pomp that groups like Anathema and Paradise Lost had been exploring to instead focus on the ambience created by long, sustained distortion. An interesting aspect of the record is their particular interpolation of progressive rock into their sound. Prog had even by the ’90s long been a quiet bedrock of heavy metal construction, being both the source of more involved triumphant epics and a reservoir of tools for evoking strangeness and peril in others. Thergothon turned the clock back somewhat, exploring the approaches to the genre early heavy metal bands like Coven and Black Sabbath had deployed in the ’70s, and Witchfinder General and Venom in the ’80s, especially with the latter’s ramshackle prog metal epic “At War With Satan.” The approach to prog metal explored by Thergothon has more in common with abstract and bleak avant-rock groups like Shub-Niggurath and Univers Zero than they do Dream Theater or Marillion.

So, given this confluence of elements both historical and aesthetic, why do I not seem to love it as much as every other dyed-in-the-wool hesher? Brace thyselves: It’s the production. While later reissues of many classic metal records from the ’90s would offer beefed up remixes and remasters, fleshing out what before had only been implied, Thergothon is one of many that alas has never received this treatment. The loss this prompts can best be understood if you catch a proper doom band live; there is a sonic girth that’s truly oppressive to this music that you can hear absolutely present on these tracks, rich with compelling musical ideas and somber, foreboding atmospheres. This is, it seems, largely a me problem; this is one of those rare records that seems impossible to fail to impress, and the fact that its members split to pursue shoegaze, trip-hop and pop rock in the wake of this record only makes such a sparse and extreme document all the more compelling. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Demilich – Nespithe

Nespithe is often tossed around when discussing death metal vocals, with pejorative terms like “burping” and “frogs ribbiting” cropping up regularly on forums. Truthfully, these are as accurate as any romanticizing of Antti Boman’s delivery. Not only are they the endgame of guttural death metal vocals, but they’re nearly impossible to emulate. They’re also tonally consistent with Nespithe. Take them as you would the entire album; a proof of an ambitious concept.

That concept is ridiculous in its premise. Assumedly, it was to be, in Demilich’s own words, “The absolutely best early ’90s Finnish jazzy-technical-guttural death metal band in the Universe.” With no predecessors for that title, it led Demilich down some alien avenues, as if the intention was to force people to ask, “Who in their right mind thought up these riffs?” Though nobody is bemoaning having to ask themselves that because Nespithe is as challenging as it is an earworm. It’s death metal first, boasting the genre’s basal appeals like neck-snapping riffs and grooves. Punishment is not Demilich’s end goal, as although heaviness is still coated into the system, the album is more of an experiment of how far they can push death metal within its confines. 

Sadly, it seems they achieved their goal, as after releasing a few demos and one album (much like many of the bands featured here), Demilich broke up. That’s arguably for the best because Nespithe feels as complete as it could’ve been. A follow-up could not have struck the same chord without redundancy. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Cynic – Focus

We’re burying the lede a little bit here with this one, admittedly. While we have since been graced with a number of Cynic recordings, both current and historical, for all of the 1990s, this was the only release of theirs available to most people. Sure, the studious could track down copies of their earlier demos, which featured shockingly little in the way of repeat tracks and better tracked the development of this group from a crusty death metal combo to a hi-tech combination of jazz fusion, progressive rock and death metal by this release, but given circulation numbers, this simply didn’t come to pass. The reception of this record was so bad, including being booed off the stage a number of times during their brief run as opener for Cannibal Corpse in 1993 and 1994, that they broke up shortly thereafter, only to reunite properly almost 15 years later. Which produces for us a curious window in which Cynic both is and isn’t a one-album band, having exited the ’90s with only one out in the world and no intentions at that time to ever do another.

While it is tempting to fancy it a great loss had they never reconvened, in truth, everything that made them legends was situated firmly here either in totality or in seed. See, for example, the incredible outro to “I’m But A Wave To…”, which churns and broils more like Yes than Morbid Angel, or instrumental track “Textures” which feels often closer to Mahavishnu Orchestra than to Deicide. Cynic emerged in the midst of a wave of progressive death metal groups of similar ilk, from the bigger names like Death to the smaller like Atheist and Pestilence. While all of those groups and their material from this time would go on to become deeply beloved, it is Focus that revealed itself to be the most generative of future artists. Everyone from Decrepit Birth to Exivious, Behold the Arctopus to Canvas Solaris refers back to this group, with their influence sweeping out far beyond the limits of progressive metal and death metal to damn near any shore touched by those elements.

As well they should have. Given the time vantage of this record, emerging in 1993, many of those previous bands had already produced their material in this milieu, had toured or even briefly featured members of Cynic. Focus represents the completion of an arc started in the late ’80s with Death’s turn toward more complex material and Atheist’s early demos, producing the apex of what all of those great bands had been working toward. And while I may prefer some of the later attendant Cynic material that would come out following this record, it’s impossible to view any of it as anything but the children of this monumental release. The ending of the record, “How Could I,” is perhaps one of the greatest album closers of all time. If you haven’t ever heard this record, change that now. – Langdon Hickman

Listen: Spotify

Kvist – For kunsten maa vi evig vike (1996)

By 1996, Norwegian black metal had expanded beyond its fruitful and formative years, establishing a broader landscape with melodic, ambient and raw offshoots. As the decade closed, many tentpole bands began walking away from black metal’s core while others abandoned the style entirely. Those mid-to-late ’90s albums are among the genre’s most intriguing, if only because most of what black metal excels at had already been put to tape, leading to multiple new expressions with similar tools. This is where the sole release by Kvist, For kunsten maa vi evig vike, rises from. 

For kunsten maa vi evig vike is raw, moving, and bounding with riffs, as you’d expect from an album of this style from this period. Peer beyond that, though. Its jagged edges simply exist rather than jab into your sides. While one could surmise this is because they are coated with a morbid production job, that’s not the case. Kvist were just more refined. Without approaching the symphonic strain of black metal, Kvist implemented keyboards for lead melodies when the guitars needed a respite. “Ars Manifestia” introduces this dynamic early in the record. After establishing that they are one with black metal’s tenants, they unfurl their keyboard feathers, revealing a more ethereal form. That quality carries over to the song structures, which are unbound to any dogmas. They are weightless, compounding with the constant cycling of guitars and keyboards to dissolve any predictability. As such, Kvist unravel black metal while existing within it. 

The Norwegian group doesn’t share members with any other notable black metal acts, had only released two demos prior to For kunsten maa vi evig vike, and disbanded in 1997. Technically, they released one track for Peaceville’s 35th anniversary a few years back, but that’s a footnote. There’s no larger lore at play, nor has the album left an undeniable footprint. For those in the know, it’s a gem, but it’s been shafted away from the broader discussions of black metal because its strength lays away from its initial punch. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Ved Buens Ende….. – Written in Waters (1995)

Colin, my cowriter here and elsewhere, referred to this record in conversation with me as art-rock guys making a black metal record because they think they are above the style. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but feel free to send hateful comments his way per your desire. I mention this because I don’t think this sentiment is actually far off the mark. The members of this esteemed group have, in the intervening decades, more than proven their real love of black metal, including reforming this band not too long ago after decades of dormancy. But one look at Virus, the group they formed in the ashes of this one—which sounds more like if Yes were evil and worshiped Satan instead of the sun rather than a Darkthrone cover band—really gets what that comment is getting at.

This is, in fact, why so many—myself included—love this record so deeply. We sometimes typify second-wave black metal as being a singular sound, full of tape hiss and heavy on the treble, tinny blastbeats and a shocking amount of racism and homophobia lurking behind the riffs. This ignores, to our peril, both the political diversity of those early innovators of the style as well as its already-apace weirdness. It is, after all, a genre predicated on a punky return to the extremes of heavy metal, and while extremity might in one sense be explored via real murders and the banal human extremes of bigotry and its violences, it too can be explored by compositions and playing styles that shock a listener out of their comfort zone. Ved Buens Ende was, years before many of their compatriots took similar plunges, the post-punk to Norway’s punky black metal scene, contemporaneous but already gazing beyond.

For years, this album sounded not just ahead of its time but ahead even of the current moment. At last, it finally sounds like it belongs to an era, feeling like it could have been released on Gilead Media during that brilliant label’s strong run from the mid 2010s to the early 2020s. That this comes 20 years after the record’s actual release date is the important notion here. We can either accept black metal as an aesthetic cage, a series of strictures that produce an already-defined style, or we can see black metal as a spiritual instinct toward art. This is the same distinction that separates progressive music from prog, separates the punky ambitions of post-punk and new wave from the endless repeat of punk throwback groups. For some, black metal is and was already interesting as it was, and they aren’t wrong. For people like me, Ved Buens Ende….. represents and early moment where people enmeshed in the scene saw the commiserate spiritual instincts between progressive music and black metal, laying the seeds for some of the very best records of the past 30 years. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Gorement – The Ending Quest

It’s obvious why The Ending Quest didn’t catch on in the face of more overt death doom bands. It arrived a year after Anathema, My Dying Bride, and Paradise Lost had all dropped albums that cemented death-doom as a style greater than the sum of its parts. Comparatively, Gorement’s only full-length release is a death metal record with doom metal influences. It’s an obvious improvement on Paradise Lost’s Lost Paradise and its framework, but its barren nature is also its bane. The Ending Quest was not fast enough to rally death metal diehards and not as overtly emotional as the death-doom that turned into gothic metal. Existing in that liminal space is tricky.

Yet, that’s why The Ending Quest is so gripping. It’s death metal played at doom metal’s pace, meaning the riffs have plenty of time to shine then evaporate into the atmosphere. The space between them is large enough to smell their pungency. Meanwhile, there’s a bite to the doom elements that stay as tertiary influences rather than guiding principles. A track like “The Memorial” can therefore have its cake and eat it too, exemplifying the peak of knotty European HM-2 death metal alongside doom’s heartfelt capabilities.  

Gorement’s members did not participate in much else of note before the group’s dissolution in 1996. By that time, they were also pinched between the Gothenburg melodic death metal scene and the Entombed-indebted strain of buzzsaw guitar tone enthusiasts. Gorement were not far enough in any direction to gather a foothold. Fortunately, time has been kind to them and The Ending Quest. It’s not without peers or free from progenitors, but its thoughtful blend of genres, using the characteristics of one to strengthen the other, is unmatched. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Liers in Wait – Spiritually Uncontrollable Art / Crystal Age – Far Beyond Divine Horizons (1992/1995)

The former of these two is a legendary death metal group to heshers despite only having a single demo and a very brief EP to their name. The work on that release is shocking mostly in how many ideas are hurled at the listener in brief, intense songs, combining neoclassical melodicism with grindcore directness, blasts with progressive riffs, avant-garde motifs with thrash power. That this release saw, at various times during the development of this material, the handiwork of founding members of everyone from At the Gates to Therion, two very different approaches to death metal, explains so much of both of those projects you perhaps had not thought to ask.

Crystal Age, however, is the group that is the real followup to that project. Composed of former members of Liers in Wait, Crystal Age solidifies the surreal riffs of the former group with elements of the cosmic-inclined death metal of Nocturnus with the bass-heavy progressive death metal of Atheist. The tendency toward both hi-speed tremolo riffs and blasts alongside a neoclassical melodicism is explored in simultaneity here. Around musical spaces, you might here a hesher here and there decrying the old-school death metal revival for being short on ideas and long on half-remembered sentiments of a genre; while clearly here we are a bit fonder of the stuff than that, groups like Crystal Age, mostly forgotten save for the trve, explore what other avenues might be pursued. There is a sense of classic shred alongside gracenotes of funk that it has taken until current groups like ATVM to really explore in full again. Plus, it has a song called “Crystals of the Wise,” and anything that deeply wizard-coded within death metal is an instant win. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Damn the Machine – Damn the Machine (1993)

What do you do when you leave Megadeth and they go on to release one of the greatest heavy metal records of all time? If you are Chris Poland, you look at what Dream Theater is doing and decide you can do them one better. Where later one-off metal group Dali’s Dilemma would produce a record that was perhaps a bit close for comfort to Dream Theater’s style, a good or bad thing depending on your feelings on that notion, Damn the Machine showcased a broader range of the melodic and progressive ideas Chris Poland had teased at in solos and instrumental passages on earlier Megadeth albums, married to a thrashy and taut attack that is deeply reminiscent of his work on seminal records like Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? It’s easy for some to turn their nose up to prog metal, but in the ’90s, caught between the declining commercial interests in thrash and the on-coming wave of nu-metal and funk metal, it was one of the few vital but also deeply contemporary styles. Pieces here will remind you at once of melodic turns from glam and from grunge, of alternative rock and pompous rock classics of the used vinyl bin. While at the time this record’s refusal to push the envelope in a more serious way is likely what remaindered them to history until their shock return 15 years later, it is also what preserves this album as a lovely listen to pulse-check what the ’90s were capable of artistically without either rose-tinted lenses re: the quality of nu-metal as an enterprise or a fetishization of already well-trod genres and records. – Langdon Hickman

Listen: Spotify

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