Released: 1990
Tracks: Cowboys From Hell; Primal Concrete Sledge; Psycho Holiday; Heresy; Cemetery Gates; Domination; Shattered; Clash With Reality; Medicine Man; Message in Blood; The Sleep; The Art of Shredding
Best track: Cemetery Gates, maybe Art of Shredding
Tracks to skip: Heresy, Shattered, Clash With Reality, Medicine Man, Message in Blood
Pantera emerges from the ashes of a glam band and unleashes their major label debut and crushes the world with thrash metal never seen before or since. YEAHHHHHHHHH!
Sorry, I was under the influence of Phil Anselmo’s totally awful falsetto screams. I know he could probably destroy me in a fight, but he’s got a totally obnoxious voice on this album. OK, yes, I used to really like this album, and some songs I still do, but boy does this not hold up that well. It is mostly due to the skinny white boy with dreads, Phil Anselmo. His voice is so annoying on this album! The songs that mostly illustrate my point about his awful falsetto are Shattered and Message in Blood. These are bad songs anyway, but his voice ruins anything that might be good about them. He hadn’t yet developed his growl yet, so really his voice didn’t have much power on this album. At least he does get better on the next one. The other major problem I have with this is the thin production. I think the sound is pretty awful on here. Maybe it was just the studio, but I know Terry Date can do better than this. There is such little bass guitar and low end. Even Vinnie Paul’s bass drums are weak sounding. It’s way too thin and sounds like a lot of albums released in the early 90’s when digital was still a fairly new thing. It needs more meat.
Side 2 of this album (starting at Shattered) is really weak. They front-loaded it and because of that most of side 2 is pretty bad. It gets better with The Sleep, and thankfully they end the album on a great note with Art of Shredding. For the most part, the best songs are found on side one (the classics, if you will). Cowboys From Hell is a good leadoff track with Primal Concrete Sledge backing it up with more pound-your-face metal. Cemetery Gates is still the biggest single on here and probably the best song. I don’t know what the heck Anselmo’s singing about since the lyrics go off in strange places at random times. Musically, it’s the best song though. Most of these songs are still pretty immature and just sound like regular heaviness, but it’s obvious that *something* is there in the songwriting area. The stars of the album are clearly brothers Vinnie Paul and Diamond Darrel (before he was cool enough to be “Dimebag”!) who were responsible for everything in this band. This band is built around the drums and guitars and these guys are miles ahead of Phil Anselmo and Rex Rocker, er, Brown on musicianship. Overall it’s an average album, they get better (for a little bit…), but start out here in major-label land just OK. Oh, I have to mention the funny stuff on this album. First we have Phil’s screams, then we have the enormous thank you list in the liner notes; I swear, everyone in the DFW metroplex is thanked! They actually give shout outs to BEER (Coors Light & Keystone Light were the ones that jumped out at me). The other funny thing is found on the amazing (har) album cover itself: these guys looking like fools in an old west bar, skinny Phil jumping off the bar, Rex standing there, Diamond Darrel doing the limbo with his guitar and Vinnie Paul laughing and EATING A SANDWICH! I guarantee you, there is no other album cover that has a dude eating a sandwich on it.
Rating: 79
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