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PANTERA - Reinventing Hell
The Best Of Pantera
From a few glam-rock slanted early releases in the '80s, Pantera
exploded into one of the most influential Metal acts of the 1990s. Their
personally crafted (and much imitated) sound of impacting precision setting
them apart from most of the Death Metal and Glam-Rock acts of that rich
early '90s era. The Cowboys From Hell's trademark is a combination of
mean, chugging, growling guitars by Dimebag Darrell (not shy to throw
in fancy lead work), machette chopping defined drumming by his brother
Vinnie Paul (with machine gun double bass drums), bottom heavy bass by
Rex Brown and invasive, controlled hard vocals by the anger-fuelled Henry
Rollins implicative Phil Anselmo. Their old albums scrapped, the band
feels they only really started fresh on 1990's Cowboys From Hell.
From that album we get the definitive title track, Domination with
its excellent pounding closer and the sharp and melodic Cemetery Gates
(Phil proving he can do way more than scream & snarl). Vulgar Display
Of Power doubled up from where they left off, spawning classics like
Mouth For War, Walk, This Love and Fucking Hostile - tracks
that simply cannot be left off their combustible live setlist (if you've
seen their triple DVD, you'll know what I'm talking about). By 1994, Far
Beyond Driven established them as THE act to follow, not just on the
basis of their great songs, but because of their grueling touring, fan
dedication and Billboard #1 debut! Radio airplay for a band like this
is pretty much non-existent and they built an army of followers via pure
dedication and living the hard rock lifestyle (as their tattoos and hard
drinking party attitude reflects). This pivotal album's tracks include
Becoming, I'm Broken, 5 Minutes Alone and the acoustic, subtle
Black
Sabbath cover
Planet Caravan. The Great Southern Trendkill, their fuck-you
album (as if any of the others weren't!), kicked against the crossbreed
of metal genres jumping up around the mid-'90s, only offer up one track
for this collection, Drag The Waters - but it's a track that sums
it up perfectly. Being a full-bred live act (more so than a studio band
- even though they're masters at both), a live album was inevitable. From
the '97 Official Live: 101 Proof, two bonus studio tracks were
added for their fans, Where You Come From included here. Their
last studio album from 2000, Reinventing The Steel saw them in
top form, but again only one track, Revolution Is Mine got selected.
This 10-ton retrospective closes with two soundtrack contributions, Immortally
Insane from the Heavy
Metal 2000
soundtrack and The Badge (a cover of the punk band Poison
Idea)
for the first Crow
film. All their albums were recorded in their home state of Texas (Phil
originally from new Orleans) and produced by technical master Terry Date
(who has laid down some cutting edge modern metal bands since, incl. Deftones
and Limp
Bizkit).
Vinnie systematically became co-producer and engineering, eventually taking
over total control, with Dimebag also sharing credit. This is one substantial
lesson in Metal, and if you don't know all there is to know about this
ass kicking band, liner notes by Don Kaye will give you a bit of a perspective
overview.
PS. This release does have one flaw, though - my CD booklet's page
order is jumbled up!
6 / A
- PB
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