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PanteraPIONEERING, FEROCIOUS and heavy as shit, Pantera were simply one of the most cock-shrivelling founts of metallic aggression in history. Formed outside of Dallas, Texas in 1981, Pantera (Spanish for 'panther') were a throwaway hair metal act until founding drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, bassist Rex Brown, and virtuoso riffmeister Darrell Lance Abbott (aka 'Diamond' or 'Dimebag') changed everything by ditching singer Terry Glaze for New Orleans hardcore and metal scenester Phil Anselmo in 1986. But while their following fourth album, 1988's 'Power Metal', hinted at the band's later trademarks it was really 1990's groundbreaking 'Cowboys From Hell' that's considered Pantera's true debut and 1992's 'Vulgar Display Of Power' their masterpiece. By combining the sonic onslaught of '80s thrash and hardcore with unabashed balladry and Dimebag's superhuman talent for writing crushingly heavy and rhythmically infectious riffs - what the band aptly termed 'power grooves' - Pantera would become the most revered American metal act of the '90s. But while Phil Anselmo's multiple side-projects (most notably Down) and his well-documented substance use would lead to his acrimonious departure and the band's unofficial dissolution in 2001, it was Dimebag's tragic murder while playing a Damageplan show in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 2004 that put the final nail in the coffin of one of the greatest metal bands of all time. 
Name: Vulgar Display of Power
Label: Eastwest
Year: 1992
Review: NO METAL jukebox is complete without it. Utterly menacing and brimming with wrathful self-belief, Pantera's definitive sixth record rewrote the book of heavy and brought metal into the '90s. From the air-punching bravado of 'Walk' to the unmitigated fury of 'Fucking Hostile', 'Vulgar...' was the sound of Pantera proclaiming their status as the new kings of metal through clenched teeth and with a fist in the air. 
Name: Far Beyond Driven
Label: Eastwest
Year: 1994
Review: AFTER THE stunning success of 1992's 'Vulgar...' the pressure was on Pantera to record an album of equal might, and '...Driven' was it and then some. Easily the most extreme album to ever shoot to the Billboard chart Number One spot in history, this is as bludgeoning as an album gets short of taking it out of your stereo and actually beating yourself with it. 
Name: Cowboys from Hell
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1990
Review: CHANGE WAS a good thing, because this raging fifth effort saw Pantera abandoning the glam-mediocrity of their past and the introduction of the power groove. While nowhere near as refined or masterful as 1992's 'Vulgar...', it was this Terry Date (Soundgarden, Deftones, Korn) produced breakthrough album and not Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - released the following year - that was the real death knell of '80s metal. 
Name: New Found Power
Label: Elektra
Year: 2004
Review: OKAY, SO it's actually a Damageplan album, but as Dimebag once told K!: "If you get Alex and Eddie Van Halen you're going to hear some Van Halen." Considering Anselmo was busy fronting Superjoint Ritual you couldn't blame brothers Vinnie and Dimebag for forming Damageplan with ex-Diesel Machine guitarist Pat Lachman on vocals. While lacking the focused wrath of Pantera's early '90s releases, Damageplan's debut had far more appeal than 2000's hackneyed and Phil-full 'Reinventing The Steel'. 
Name: Re-inventing the Steel
Label: Eastwest
Year: 2000
Review: IT WAS a fair assumption that Pantera had problems when Phil Anselmo overdosed on heroin backstage at a Pantera show in Dallas in 1996. And it came as no surprise that the band's follow-up to 1996's 'The Great Southern Trendkill' lacked the metal-clad gusto of Pantera's most beloved releases. The riffs were there but the spirit and invention wasn't and, unsurprisingly, the band dissolved just a year later.
Key Pantera Tracks |
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