However I don't think it's true that all their albums (even if we forget all the glam rock crap before cowboys) are equally great. Cowboys from Hell was completely obliterated by Vulgar Display. Far Beyond Driven was disappointing compared to Vulgar ... and the Great Southern Trendkill had some wonderful moody tunes but was a bit inconsistent as an album.
Anyway that's my assessment of them. A great band, especially for the genre they chose, with a great frontman and with an album that is a timeless masterpiece for the genre.
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
bugsonglass said:Pantera was an awesome band for their time. In a sense they took thrash and made it relevant. I have always thought that the reason they were different/better than other "similar" bands was having a very competent vocalist and charismatic frontman in Phil Anselmo.
However I don't think it's true that all their albums (even if we forget all the glam rock crap before cowboys) are equally great. Cowboys from Hell was completely obliterated by Vulgar Display. Far Beyond Driven was disappointing compared to Vulgar ... and the Great Southern Trendkill had some wonderful moody tunes but was a bit inconsistent as an album.
Anyway that's my assessment of them. A great band, especially for the genre they chose, with a great frontman and with an album that is a timeless masterpiece for the genre.
I agree with you about Phil. People can say whatever they want about him, but its BECAUSE he is the way he is that made him such an interesting and exciting frontman, which is something metal really lacks these days....their are some great bands out there but they just don't know how to deliver it like Pantera and the more old school bands did. Phil and Dime made Pantera great, in the same way David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen made Van Halen great.
I also agree that Vulgar destroyed Cowboys, but that's not to say Cowboys isn't an absolute classic....just that Vulgar was Pantera's masterpiece and one of the best metal albums ever.
I know some people have mixed reactions to Far Beyond Driven and Trendkill, but I loved them both...they were both different and still more interesting than most of what I hear today, and each have some of Pantera's all-time best Live songs, like Becoming, Use My Third Arm, War Nerve, and Suicide Note.
Far Beyond Driven also has probably my favorite sound of any Metal album ever made. The guitars were crushing, the drums were perfect, bass was nice and thick, and the vocals well done. Everything was in your face and easy to hear, yet still had a very raw sound that many metal albums lose when they are too well produced.
Also, I always laugh when people try to say Pantera wasn't a thrash band...usually to protect one of their favorite bands from getting dumped down the list of greatness a notch because of it. They were absolutely a Thrash Metal band....and one with a very different sound that took elements from every sub-genre in metal to create their own sound, instead of trying to sound like Megadeth or Slayer or Morbid Angel.
BTW, its funny because Pantera's last album, 2000's Reinventing The Steel....my brother and I were actually disappointed in the album when we first heard it, because it doesn't have the originality (its basically a copy of Vulgar's style) or the brutality of their other CD's (still very heavy but more in a classic metal way. Didn't have anything just straight up brutal like Slaughtered, Fucking Hostile, Hell's Wrath, etc.).
But over the years its really grown on me, and after 10 years of brutal metal since Cowboys at that time it came out, it was definitely a hell of a lot better than most bands produce at that point in their career. And also a great album to end their career on...not to mention the last song on the album being called "I'll Cast A Shadow".
The unreleased song is up on YouTube, which I have here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEJApXNgc6Y
Cool track but obvious why it didn't get put on the album. Its more of a classic metal/ Judas Priest style of song compared to the rest of Cowboys, and the direction Pantera was going, as they were turning into a hardcore thrash metal band. Haven't heard Phil Anselmo sing like that in ages. And as others pointed out, Dime introduced the riff that would end up causing some of the most brutal mosh pits ever in "This Love" off the Vulgar Display of Power album, right here.
Great news for Pantera fans here. Finally, their albums are starting to get the remaster treatment they deserve! Granted, Pantera was always at the absolute cutting edge of production values in Metal, but Cowboys definitely needed a bit more polish compared to their other CD's.
The Deluxe Edition of the album contains a 2nd disc with rare & badass Live material, and a 3rd disc that has demo versions of nearly every song on the album, + a never before heard track called "The Will To Survive".
For those who don't know, Pantera was pretty much THE best and most important band in Metal for arguably the entire decade of the 90's. When all the great 80's bands started to lose their way, Pantera just came onto the scene like a fuckin' steamroller and paved the way for hardcore metal in the 90's.
Cowboys From Hell, like basically every album they made, is an all-time metal classic.
Forever, STRONGER THAN ALL!!!
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-cowboys-from-hell-ride-again-98842444.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NKk2za9cR4