Metal Mail: Pantera

What the fuck is that?!  

Yes, this is a Pantera album.  The band in the 1990's wanted everyone to think that their first album was Cowboys From Hell, but that is not true in the least.  That was actually their FIFTH album.  Pantera disavowed their first four albums and that is not terribly surprising given the large difference in sound and quality, but I would argue that this is a pretty damn good album.  In fact, it is not all that dissimilar from the aforementioned Cowboys.

This was the first album with the classic Pantera lineup as Phil Anselmo joined the band as singer.  His style at the time was less tough-guy hardcore and much more dynamic.  Anselmo can truly sing on this release among some truly impressive shrieking.  Seriously, he does one hell of a Rob Halford impression here.  

Another highlight to this album is the amazing guitar work of "Diamond" Darrell.  He would of course go by "Dimebag" later on, but he was "Diamond" here.  People have long claimed that he was one of the greatest metal guitarists of all time, but I was never totally impressed with the groove metal work, much preferring his work on Cowboys.  He has some of his greatest riffs on this album and some damn good solos as well.  

There are some less-than-stellar songs here, such as the regrettable "P.S.T. 88", but most of the songs are actually damn good.  "Proud to be Loud" is the kind of anthemic track that would have been at home on an early 80's Judas Priest album and the first half of the album is full of some of the best and catchiest songs of the band's career.  

If you are looking for something like Vulgar Display of Power, you are going to be disappointed with this album.  However, if you are like me and Cowboys is far and away your favorite Pantera album, you should at least give this album a shot.

In Memory of Dimebag

This is my all-time favorite Pantera song, and probably Top 10 songs of all-time:


I don't care for much later Pantera, but Cowboys from Hell is awesome.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 121

ARTIST:  Pantera
ORIGIN:  Arlington, TX (United States)
TITLE:  Reinventing the Steel
LABEL:  Elektra
YEAR:  2000
GENRE:  Groove Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Uplift"
NOTES:  Ah yes Pantera.  This would turn out to be the band's last full-length album.  They broke up in a flurry of bad blood soon after.  I actually liked this album pretty well for awhile.  I would place it above Vulgar Display of Power personally, but below Far Beyond Driven.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 66

ARTIST:  Pantera
ORIGIN:  Arlington, TX (United States)
TITLE:  Vulgar Display of Power
LABEL:  Atlantic Records
YEAR:  1992
GENRE:  Groove Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Mouth for War"
NOTES:  This is the album that really caused groove metal to take over as the most popular metal subgenre for a little while.  The music was much more simplified on this release from the power/thrash metal of the previous release.  Dimebag Darrell's riffs and Phil Anselmo's tough-guy snarl were the driving forces of this release and "Walk" proved to be a very popular song.  I just do not care much for this album.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 37

ARTIST:  Pantera
ORIGIN:  Arlington, TX (United States)
TITLE:  Far Beyond Driven
LABEL:  Eastwest Records
YEAR:  1994
GENRE:  Groove Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Shedding Skin"
NOTES:  This is quite possibly the album most people think of when they think of Pantera.  Well it's probably between this one and the one preceding it.  This is mostly due to "I'm Broken", one of the band's most well-known songs.  For the most part though, this is not one of the band's better albums.  It does contain a lot of filler tracks, including the dreadful "Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills".  Nevertheless there are some decent songs on here.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 11

ARTIST:  Pantera
ORIGIN:  Arlington, TX (United States)
TITLE:  Cowboys from Hell
LABEL:  Atlantic Records
YEAR:  1990
GENRE:  Heavy Metal/Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Cemetery Gates"
NOTES:  At the time, this was the most extreme album I had ever heard.  It actually gave me a headache the first time I heard it. But I did not give up on it and kept listening to it to the point that it was a favorite album pretty quickly.  At the time, "Cemetery Gates" had been played a lot on the local hard rock radio station as a result of appearing on a soundtrack.  Of course Pantera changed their sound soon after this release, but it remains my favorite Pantera album.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 52: Pantera: Far Beyond Driven

Apart from Cowboys from Hell, I never really got Pantera.  To be fair I have not checked out their material prior to that album, their more glam phase was just not something I chose to check out.  That being said, I still bought most of the band's albums because I was a young metalhead and I felt it was my duty to check them out as Pantera pretty much was the be-all and end-all of metal in the mid 1990's.  I was in middle school and did not really have much exposure to the metal underground.

Far Beyond Driven was released in 1994.  By this point, Pantera had perfected their groove metal sound.  Of course Vulgar Display of Power was the release that got the band headed in that direction.  But this is the one that a lot of mainstream people think of when they think of Pantera, mostly due to the minor hit "I'm Broken".

There are some decent songs on this release, and by and large I do like it better than Vulgar Display of Power.  For some reason that album never really did anything for more.  I think the reason I like this one better is due to the fact that the songs on this one are not as stripped-down and simple as they are on the prior album.  Dimebag's riffs are generally more impressive on this release as well.

However there is one truly terrible song on here.  "Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills" is an absolutely horrible song.  There is no redeeming quality at all on that song.

I do tend to listen to this album occasionally, more than Vulgar certainly.  But this is not the Pantera I choose to remember.  Their tough-guy, macho image on this release is annoying.  I much prefer Cowboys.

Top 5 Thrash Metal Ballads

Well I was going to link to an article on the Deciblog but I can't find it anymore and I get a 404 error all the time.

Anyway, as I recall, there was an article on the Deciblog naming the writer's top 5 thrash metal ballads. I only remember three of them off the top of my head: Anthrax: "Black Lodge", Metallica: "Fade to Black", and Testament: "The Ballad". I agree with one of them. Anthrax's song is okay but I would not go so far as to call it one of my top 5 thrash metal ballads. Testament has produced better ballads than "The Ballad" in my opinion.

Here's my list:

5. Suicidal Tendencies: "Nobody Hears". Highly underrated song from a band that has not achieved the fame and recognition they deserve. It's a bit more experimental than their usual fare, but still sounds great.

4. Megadeth: "A Tout Le Monde". Soul-crushing. Plain and simple.

3. Pantera: "Cemetary Gates". Excellent song with an amazing riff and incredibly sad. Pantera was basically a thrash metal band at this point, but slowed down into groove metal on the next album.

2. Metallica: "Fade to Black". I do love this song and Ride the Lightning was the first metal album I ever bought. This song was a big reason why I practically wore it out.

1. Testament: "Return to Serenity". As I stated before, Testament has done better ballads. This is my favorite song of all time.

EDIT: Death Angel: "A Room with a View" and possibly Pantera: "Cemetary Gates" were the other two on the list.

Year in Metal: 1990

ENTOMBED: LEFT HAND PATH
I could be mistaken on this, but I think this was the first full-length album by a Swedish death metal band using the Sunlight Studio. It has the very familiar buzzsaw guitar sound on the riffs. This was just a small sign of things to come from the Swedish death metal scene as Dismember, Grave, and others began releasing albums and the guitar tone became commonplace. It's influential because it's a great album, not just the tone. Unfortunately Entombed would never put out another album quite as good.

JUDAS PRIEST: PAINKILLER
After a bit of a period of mediocrity, Judas Priest returned in full force on this album. The songs were more engineered to sound like their 1970's output, while adding in elements of speed metal. What resulted was a frenetic and fantastic album of speed and power. Halford never sounded quite as good as he does on this album. Unfortunately, he would leave the band soon after and it would be years before he rejoined them. This is Priest's best album in my mind.

KREATOR: COMA OF SOULS
This is not a particularly special or unique release by Kreator, it's actually just them being Kreator. But the album is great anyway and was the band's last great album before over-experimenting with other styles. This album features the incredible "People of the Lie", which is one of my personal favorite German thrash metal songs. Mille's voice sounds amazing on this album. As I said, it would be years before they got back to this point.

PANTERA: COWBOYS FROM HELL
Here we see the beginning of a powerful career in metal. Pantera had released a few albums before this, but this was the first of their groove metal stage, the most well-known part of the band's history. They had not fully resorted to mid-paced half-thrash at this point. This album still bears marks of power/thrash metal. It is my favorite Pantera album for this reason, and also because "Cemetery Gates" is an all-time favorite song. I was never quite as impressed with the rest of the band's output, maybe it's because this was the first album I heard, maybe it's because this is just simply better, in every way.

SADUS: SWALLOWED IN BLACK
I mentioned in a previous post that thrash was finding new ways of brutality in the late 1980's/early 1990's. This is one of the lead bands from this brutal style of thrash. Sadus plays inhumanly fast. This is the second album from the band, which features Steve DiGiorgio of such great bands as Death, Testament, Autopsy, and Iced Earth. Sadus is so brutal that they oftentimes veer in the direction of death metal.

Honorable mentions: Alice in Chains: Facelift, Anthrax: Persistence of Time, Blind Guardian: Tales from the Twilight World, Cannibal Corpse: Eaten Back to Life, Danzig: II-Lucifuge, Death: Spiritual Healing, Death Angel: Act III, Deicide: Deicide, Forbidden: Twisted Into Form, Iced Earth: Iced Earth, Megadeth: Rust in Peace, Obituary: Cause of Death, Paradise Lost: Lost Paradise, Queensryche: Empire, Slayer: Seasons in the Abyss, Testament: Souls of Black.

Bands that formed in 1990: At the Gates, Cathedral, Dark Tranquillity, Fear Factory, In Flames, Krisiun, Kyuss, Lamb of God, Lost Horizon, My Dying Bride, Opeth, Satyricon, Type O Negative.

5 Year Annversary of the Death of Dimebag Darrell

Yeah, I know it was yesterday but I was busy dealing with the blizzard. At any rate, Dimebag has been gone for five years now. I have never been a huge fan of his. I admit, he had some great riffs, but I was never hugely impressed by him. Nevertheless, it is extremely sad what happened to him. Pantera wasn't one of my favorite bands but I did like them well enough. I never bothered checking out Damageplan though. R.I.P. Dimebag.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 21: Pantera: Cowboys From Hell

It's hard to believe. There once was a time when Pantera had melody. There once was a time when Pantera had speed. There once was a time when Pantera's vocalist Phil Anselmo could actually sing.

Cowboys From Hell is recognized by the band as being its debut album. This isn't technically true. Pantera released FOUR, count them, four, albums prior to Cowboys. The problem is that the four albums before this are a little more glam-metal oriented. The tough-guy groove metal band doesn't want to admit that it had a more colorful past.

Cowboys is the bridge between the band's earlier material and their groove metal material. As such, it is considerably different than their later sound. It is melodic, fast, and thrashy. Anselmo's voice actually spanned several octaves. The riffs were razor-sharp, but were faster. Diamond Darrell, as he was called then, did show some of the tone that he later made his trademark, but he played much faster.

Some of the songs, such as "Shattered" and "Domination" showed traces of their later, dumbed-down material. Then there were songs such as "The Sleep" and "Clash With Reality" that were considerably more melodic. Then there's "Cemetary Gates", one of my all time favorite songs. This is a great power ballad. Melodic, but still sinister and powerful. A great song and completely out of character for the same band that wrote "Walk".

I once told someone that this is my favorite Pantera album, it still is as I barely listen to the groove metal stuff. Their response was that this is not a "real Pantera album". Fucking poseur. This is true metal. A great album by a band that forgot how to be great. Sure, if they had continued down this path, they may not have had mainstream success. So what? The music was much better. That's the most important thing. R.I.P. Dimebag.