Q: In this task, you will be given a passage to read. A fill in the blank question will be given to you. Your answer should fit the blank appropriately.
In 1994 , Century Media Records offered Townsend a contract to make some extreme albums. He agreed to a five @-@ album deal with the record label , and also provided much of the guitar work on the 1994 album Millennium and the 1995 album Hard Wired by Vancouver industrial band Front Line Assembly . Townsend began to record material under the pseudonym Strapping Young Lad . He avoided using his real name at this point in career , looking for a fresh start after his high @-@ profile Vai gig . At the beginning , I wanted to avoid at all cost to use my name because I was known as the singer for Steve Vai and it wasn 't the best publicity to have , he later explained . I was playing somebody else 's music and I was judged in respect to that music . Townsend produced and performed nearly all the instruments on the debut studio album , Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing , which was released in April 1995 . Following the release of the record , Townsend and several other musician friends he knew in Vancouver recorded his first solo album in 1996 entitled Punky Bruster Cooked on Phonics . Written and recorded in under a month , the album was produced as a parody of punk rock bands and documents the act of selling out for mainstream success . Townsend founded his own independent record label , HevyDevy Records , to release the album . Townsend assembled a permanent lineup of Strapping Young Lad to record City , including prolific metal drummer Gene Hoglan , along with Townsend 's former bandmates Jed Simon on guitar and Byron Stroud on bass . The industrial @-@ influenced album was released in 1997 . To this day , the album is widely considered Strapping Young Lad 's best work , with Metal Maniacs calling it groundbreaking and Revolver naming it one of the greatest metal albums of all time. Townsend himself considers it the band 's ultimate album . Later that year , Townsend released his second solo album , Ocean Machine : Biomech . The album featured a mix of hard rock , ambient , and progressive rock . After the completion of City and Ocean Machine : Biomech , Townsend began to approach a mental breakdown . fill in the blank : In 1994 , Century Media Records offered Townsend a contract to make some __________________ albums .
A:
extreme