kcik666
My favorite Pantera album, and easily one of my favorite albums as a teenager. Pantera solidified my love for metal music, this is like listening to history for me.
5
My favorite Pantera album, and easily one of my favorite albums as a teenager. Pantera solidified my love for metal music, this is like listening to history for me.
Pantera are one of the first metal bands I really fell for. I skipped past the nu metal scene, which was really fading out at that point, and went for Texas' finest after becoming acquainted with the classics, but just before discovering death metal. So I know this album pretty well. But at the same time, while my devotion for Sabbath and Maiden will never die, Pantera do little for me nowadays. Part of that comes from recognizing their problematic elements, primarily with racism. Anselmo is by far the guiltiest, but Dime and Vinnie did love the Confederate flag... And I'm southern, yet I have no defense for said love. Even before that, I just realized that the songwriting just isn't there. They're all fine musicians- I do have a lot of respect for Dime being a one-man guitar team and making the band sound just as full as your average twin attack in metal- but this all feels too juvenile to resonate for me beyond, like, 10th grade. I'll always go back to Beavis and Butthead's take down on the "This Love" video- "You treat your stepmother with respect, Pantera, or you'll be sleeping in the street." I laugh despite that track being a highlight for me. Cowboys would probably rate higher for me, but even when I was all aboard the Pantera train, I always found Vulgar a little overrated. Current grade would be a C-, but 15-year-old me would easily be in the B range.
Important for heavy music.
-The scooped-mid guitar tone is abysmal -The tough-guy posturing is embarrassing for anyone older than 18 -Fucking Hostile sounds like they tried to write a Ride-era Metallica song but forgot the part where Metallica is good -Walk is goofy as hell and has been memed into oblivion at this point -Vulgar display of bad music
Reminded me quite a bit of metallica - honestly wondered if they shared a singer at first lol. Pretty dated, but still fun to listen to. Album seemed to be heavily back-loaded.
The songs here are solid. A New Level is groovy as fuck. Fucking Hostile is a thrashy rager. This Love is an eerie alt metal song, while Rise is another angry groovy banger with a great solo. The album does grow repetitive around the halfway point and the overly macho lyrics are a little cringe when you know who's singing them. But it's overall a fun, heavy album.
Now we're talkin'! This is an album that takes me right back to high school when I would listen to it constantly. One of the bands that first drew me into listening to heavy music. I spent endless hours trying to learn all of these riffs on guitar, and "Mouth for War" was the first drum track I transposed into MIDI for my drum machine, so this album taught me tons as an amateur musician. Over the years, the tone of the guitars and drums on this album have taken on a "ridiculous" sound in my ears, in that it's an extremely polished and over the top but dated sound, one that I don't think I'd enjoy on anyone else's material, but I just love it on these songs.
I know I've listened to this before, but I didn't remember it very well. Listening with fresh 2022 ears, I found a lot to like. The singles still hold up pretty well, although I probably could never hear Walk again and be ok. This Love is still good. I was most surprised by Fucking Hostile and Rise. Those are straight bangers and I enjoyed them a lot. It fell off a bit near the end, but not by a lot. I was still enjoying it. Too bad Anselmo is a shithead. 4/5
This is the most overrated Pantera record by a mile. Personally, I find this band peaked with their groovier stuff, specifically GST. Give me Exhorder’s Slaughter in the Vatican or The Law over this & CFH 10/10 times. Still, these dorks had considerable influence on extreme metal of so many varieties it’s ridic, and this album is a big reason why. Say what you will about Dime’s shit tone (something I think people should be aping more often), dude had a style and carved himself a guitar legend niche, I suppose by way of writing tons of killer and innovative riffs and solos. Similarly, Vinnie had his own style, but for me his party trick doesn’t come to fruition until later records. Not that he’s slacking here (IIRC everything he recorded is sound-replaced – I could be wrong – but it just works better for me in slower contexts), he’s got a super ear for drum hooks and really knows when to dial things back. Phil is serviceable at best, technically (a dumbass at best, otherwise), but is the perfect kind of meathead to pull together this fusion of hardcore and heavy metal that’d live on for decades. Rex played electric bass guitar in Pantera… (lol). Side A is loaded with the hits, though if I never hear “Walk” or “Fucking Hostile” in my life ever again, I’d be just fine. “A New Level” and “This Love” hold up fairly well. Side B is pretty uneven, but this is where you can hear ‘em lean into the stomp/groove shit they master on later records. “Rise” and “No Good” are laughably bunk, but “Live in a Hole” is neat, working this schticky classic rock call-and-response thing, keeping the leads front and center. “Regular People” also has some cool lead work, but that’s about it… The 1-2 conclusion of this album is killer, though. “By Demons Be Driven” is one of my faves from their discography – that blend of livewire leads and jackhammer kicks is the essence of Pantera – and “Hollow” is the kinda “Cemetery Gates” shit this band should’ve wrote five times more of (honestly, someone should blatantly rip this off, there’s an entire band idea sitting right here). 3.5/5