Metal Reviews

It amazes me how much hatred gets directed at Pantera.

Sure they started out as a Glam band, sure they borrowed a bit from Exhorder's sound (they were friends after all), sure Phil Anselmo is a dick, sure they inspired Nu-metal (though the main infleunce is Faith No More) and sure they were massively popular in the 1990's.

After all Metalheads hate success. It's the hardcore influence.

But then you meet some poser whose metal credentials go only so far as Nightwish or Kamelot or In Flames or some other modern Euro Pop Metal slag out Pantera as posers and you think "what the fuck."

For better or worse, Pantera kept metal in the commercial lime light in 1990s when Metal was a dirty word. Especially as Megadeth, Metallica etc all turned the aggression to a minimum and tried to reinvent themselves as commercial hard rock bands.

And they did influence more than just Nu-metal. Most Thrash bands tried to emulate their groove metal sound (e.g. Overkill, Testament, Anthrax, Machine Head (formed by ex Viol-Lence members) or push their level of aggression to meet Pantera's (Slayer with Divine Intervention) .

Stuff like Morbid Angel's Domination album or Entombed's Wolverine Blues was partially rooted in the Pantera school of groove metal.


And for those of us that are partial to Groove Metal, they wrote some phenomenal stuff.

By the way I do have a CFH logo tatooed to my leg. We all tried to live the Pantera lifestyle as displayed in the Vulgar Videos (pre DVD medium for all you young 'uns).

I have always thought that vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven are two great CDs to drink beer around a bonfire to personally....

Pantera is the single most important band in the evolution of my metallic tastes. Vulgar Display was the album that made me realise I want my music as heavy as possible when I was a kid.

I will defend the honour of Pantera against all on-comers.

Pantera = great workout music

Again, I don't agree with your nebulous depiction of hardcore influence, but I've never hated 90s Pantera.

Cemetary Gates is nearly as good as Fade to Black, and Vulgar Display of Power is one of those albums I could listen to with all the "normal" guys in college.

I wasn't referring to Pantera being influenced by hardcore but rather metal as a whole.

Hardcore was the first musical genre to embrace "success of any sort is bad" philosophy which was then adopted by metal.

As Dan Liker out of Nuclear Assault said in an interview once about hardcore fans, "you sold out if you sold records and you sold out if you got a job cause you didn't sell records."

Cowboys from Hell wasn't too bad. Everything else I heard ranged from average to atrocious.

As a biased fan, I find it hard to believe that a metal fan could resist the temptation to headbang when someone puts on Vulgar Display of Power.

But either way, you have to respect their dedication to their trade. The more popular they became, the heavier they brought their shit. You hear a lot of hate around these forums directed at watered down, neutered major label releases. In the face of that, you'd think Pantera should deserve a little respect.

Don't forget that after upping the aggression for Far Beyond Driven (which opened at Number 1 in the U.S. and Australia. Number 1 for god's sake!) they released the Great Southern Trendkill, which in comparison to anything else in that region of the billboard chart, can only be described as a ragingly fucking vicious slab of metallic bile.

No other metal band has ever done so well to succeed in the mainstream without sacrificing their core audience.

I didn't say I didn't respect them. I did.
They're just not my thing.
I sure understand what some people have heard in them (aka a new way, at least when CfH was released). I actually saw them opening for Judas Priest on that tour (Painkiller tour!) and headlining for their Far Beyond Driven tour and both concerts have been terrible. I think that's what lead me to consider Pantera as an overrated hype and something that had nothing much in store for me. Not once song I've listened to since then made me change my mind.

I love Cowboys From Hell, but tried their later stuff again recently and it's a bit simplistic for me these days. I do like the odd song, and certainly Dead1 is right in that they're a very important 90s band. Just not what I want from metal these days.

I guess it's more of folks not liking them that much rather than hating them. I like some Pantera too, but in small doses.

Fair enough. I've heard they were notoriously shit live. All that alcohol and heroin started to get in the way there a little bit. I never had the opportunity to see them, so my entire evaluation of their legacy is based on their recorded output.

You know what? I actually had a photo pass for the Priest concert (and did the most boring interview with Rex). And Anselmo, who should have been drunk, flashed us his big fat genitals... I think I must have the picture somewhere in all the mess lying around my home. If I ever find it, I'll post it on the forums.
Anyway, both shows were indeed crap. And I blame Anselmo for that. Drunk, coked up, "tough-guyed", he was the annoying factor in a band which did a pretty good job at what they did even if it wasn't my cuppa. Actually, I remember telling a friend after the second show that he looked like a pathetic Rollins wannabe.



The 90s is when I got bored with metal... All this nu, chugga-chugga, tough guy, rap-it-out routine bored me. And nothing in the extreme division really brought me back in. A really crappy time for metal.

+1.

I've actually been on a Phil Anselmo binge recently and have been listening to Pantera, Superjoint Ritual, and Down non-stop.

Pantera was the band to get me into looking into more extreme metal bands.
Got nothing against them at all.

Vulgar was great, but I felt the riffs became too simplistic after that.

I like nearly like Trendkill for Floods alone.

bad music stupid attitude

Hmm, I'm surprised people are saying that they were shit live. I managed to see them 6 times, and it was always fucking awesome.

.:crast:.

They had to do something to make up (no pun) for their shitty glam days.