{"id":39871,"date":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/far-beyond-driven\/"},"modified":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","slug":"far-beyond-driven","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/far-beyond-driven\/","title":{"rendered":"Far Beyond Driven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Far Beyond Driven<\/em> rode on the success of Pantera’s critically-acclaimed Vulgar Display of Power<\/em>, becoming the first metal album to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts, smashing the notion that heavy metal was dead and gone. However, this achievement does not really say much about the album, because Far Beyond Driven<\/em> is a step backward from their previous work and shows signs of the band slowing down.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the good. Pantera wanted to make a heavier album, and opener \u201cStrength Beyond Strength\u201d is an indication of that promise fulfilled. The song is arguably one of their most vicious tracks, a scathing, mad-thrashing intro followed with a primal and guttural vocal delivery by Philip Anselmo. The breakdown in the middle subdues the rage intro controlled madness, with headbang-worthy passages.<\/p>\n

The almost six-minute \u201cFive Minutes Alone\u201d and single \u201cI\u2019m Broken\u201d are the accessible numbers in this album, with the latter mixing heaviness and mainstream elements. The song is a groovy and mid-paced song propelled by a Southern edge, and is not as corrosive as their other songs. Anselmo hollers the lyrics with his unique howls, while the middle of the song shows why Dimebag was one hell of a guitarist, with tasteful and melodic leads that fit the music.<\/p>\n

The culmination of their heavy-handed songwriting is most evident with the brutal triumvirate of \u201cShedding Skin,\u201d \u201cUse My Third Arm,\u201d and \u201cThroes of Rejection,\u201d epitomizing Pantera at its heaviest and grooviest, with thundering riffs lurching, grinding, and pummeling the listener\u2019s head in the ground.<\/p>\n

However, their intent of writing heavier music came in at the expense of solid songwriting. Some of the songs feel half-assed and incoherent, making the sum actually less than its parts. \u201cHard Lines, Sunken Cheeks\u201d boasts an emotive, clean guitar intro building into that groovy verse and moderate breaking chorus. Unfortunately, the remaining five minutes of the tracks repeats the whole thing ad nauseum, making it a waste of time. The same thing goes for \u201c25 Years,\u201d but worse.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, after listening to \u201cGood Friends And A Bottle Of Pills,\u201d with its pimpy basslines, cheesy lyrics about sex, and just whacked-out playing reminiscent of that hidden track on Alice In Chains’ Sap<\/em>, one could have just heard possibly one of the worst recorded tracks ever. Considering that this is obviously a filler track, they could have at least made the least interesting. This is just stupid.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of the album that simply needs improvement is the lyrics. Although not the best lyricist in metal music, Philip Anselmo does thrive in writing sincere and respectable street-wise lines here and there (\u201cYou\u2019re muscle and gall \/ na\u00efve at best \/ I\u2019m bone, brain, cock \/ deep down, stronger than all!\u201d from \u201cStrength Beyond Strength\u201d). However, most of his lyrics on this album just border on the dumb. \u201cSlaughtered\u201d is a musically decent number but is simply ruined by the awful lyrics (\u201cBrainwashed by me \/ myself influenced I\u201d).<\/p>\n

Except for \u201cPlanet Caravan,\u201d a cover song from Black Sabbath, there is no tender moment in the album, or at least a song written to the style of the almighty classics \u201cCemetery Gates\u201d and \u201cHollow.\u201d The band has the knack of writing brooding passages that build into headbanging anthems. All we are left with are primarily heavy and unrelenting songs, which are not bad by any stretch, but it does leave you wondering if they just bothered mixing it up a little how much better this could have been.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Far Beyond Driven<\/em> could have been a decent album, especially at a shorter length. Be it as it may, the album tries a little bit too hard to be driven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":28424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5816],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-39871","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pantera","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39871","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39871"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39871"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}