I remember the first time I heard Pantera; I happened to get my
\nhands on a three-song promo disc from their then-new release
\nCowboys From Hell<\/i> while I was in college radio. The energy
\nof these songs blew me away (at this time, I was a “recovering”
\nheadbanger, having just discovered the wonders of alternative,
\nblues and reggae); this was a breath of fresh air compared to some
\nof the metal I had heard in my life.<\/p>\n
Eight years after its release,
\nCowboys From Hell<\/i> still features some great music, but it
\nalso shows a band very much in the process of discovering who they
\nwere. The uncertainty shows more often than I’d like to hear,
\nsomething that ends up diminishing the power of the album.<\/p>\n
Vocalist Phillip Anselmo often sounds like he’s pulling out his
\nvocal chords with a weed-whacker, happily scream-singing the
\nlyrics. However, he shows on more than one occasion on the album
\nthat he knows how to sing properly, and delivers the goods almost
\nconsistently. Bassist Rex and drummer Vinnie Paul both provide a
\nsolid rhythm backbone to the band. This leaves Diamond Darrell, a
\nguitarist who doesn’t often show the flash a lead player should,
\nbut also doesn’t seem to often display the chops a rhythm guitarist
\nneeds. Far too often, Darrell’s rhythm lines seem to be
\nsingle-string progressions; the times he does choose to throw in a
\npower chord or three, his rhythm lines noticably improve. (For that
\nmatter, his solos are much better on the second half of the
\nalbum.)<\/p>\n
The songs themselves aren’t half bad, though it does seem near
\nthe end like Pantera is padding the album out with… well, “fluff”
\nisn’t quite the word for metal, but it will have to do. Songs like
\nthe title track, “Psycho Holiday,” “Cemetery Gates” and “Primal
\nConcrete Sledge” all portray Pantera as one of the most intense
\nbands to hit the scene in a long time – even in the gentler,
\nacoustic moments of the opening portion of “Cemetery Gates”.<\/p>\n
And although the overall musicianship improves on cuts like
\n“Shattered,” “Medicine Man” and “Message In Blood,” the second part
\nof the album features the most lackluster songwriting in the bunch.
\nTo put it bluntly, some of it tends to bore me – I mean, how often
\ncan one throw the double bass and distortion-laden E-chord down
\nwithout things becoming a bit stale?<\/p>\n
In retrospect, this is indeed a shame, because
\nCowboys From Hell<\/i> is actually a much better album than it
\nturned out to be. Even something as simple as a shuffling of the
\ntracks on this album could have improved things noticeably.
\n(Following “Clash With Reality” up with “Domination” or “Psycho
\nHoliday” would have been a natural progression.)<\/p>\n
But the overall weakness turns out to be Pantera itself, a band
\nthat was still growing into the role of threatening headbangers.
\n(It is my understanding from the metal newsgroups that Pantera once
\nwas – yeech – a glam band, though I have yet to hear or see any of
\nthese early works.) Darrell’s apparent insecurity over rhythm
\ntracks is eventually conquered, but is it too late by that time?
\nAnselmo doesn’t always seem to know how he wants to deliver his
\nvocals (though his best performance is on “Shattered”). All of this
\nadds up to a tentative release.<\/p>\n
There still is a lot to recommend off of
\nCowboys From Hell<\/i>, but their glory days still hadn’t
\narrived. In fact, they proved that they had a long way to go before
\nthey would reach their masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5816],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39393","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pantera","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39393"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39393"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}