The conversation had drifted to talk of Victorian literature as the tables we’d pulled together filled up the rear courtyard of the bar. If this were some intentional move toward more sophisticated drinking banter, I’d be having none of that particularly enlightened affectation. No sooner was the question raised as to the name of the third, less acclaimed Brönte sister, than I christened her with the posthumous moniker “Dimebag” Brönte. To date, one of my friends in attendance that night keeps me listed in his phone by that handle. I have wondered how much else he and I still have in common beyond our abiding love for the onslaught brought upon the world by Pantera, but then I realized that alone is enough.
By the beginning of 1992, it was time for Pantera to step up or step the fuck off. As noted by Robin Ramzinski, “that pussy Cobain” had effectively put an end to the hair metal heyday of the Eighties with the 1991 release of Nevermind. Elsewhere in the mainstream radio landscape, W. Axl Rose had turned his own maladjusted suburban upbringing into the sprawling theatrical opus known collectively as Use Your Illusion, putting him squarely at odds with Nirvana’s frontman over the matter of hyper-virile posturing in the realm of heavy music. At around the same time alleged metal purists Metallica got their cover blown and Billboard ambitions bared with a cover of Rolling Stone, Pantera found an opening in the speed and volume melee to slide right into. There was no posturing to these guys; they had already learned that they were too rough around the edges to hack it as anyone’s idea of pretty boys. Pantera didn’t trade in machismo, they didn’t puff their chests out and stuff their leather pants. They didn’t need to; Pantera, in short, were genuinely goddamned terrifying. They were pissed off, Southern, and in vocalist Phil Anselmo’s own words, “fucking hostile.” As the years wore on, Anselmo’s hostility became synonymous with drug abuse but, in the band’s prime, his hellspawn drill sergeant delivery contained messages of surprising tolerance and personal betterment – despite the near-Aryan figure he cut on stage.
The opening five-song run of Vulgar Display of Power introduced mosh aficionados to a string of instant classics unrivaled since the release of AC/DC’s Back In Black, but personally I find the pair of songs that end the album to be the true highlight. “By Demons Be Driven” sports the set’s coolest, eeriest riff and “Hollow” finds the band with so much ferocity to burn that they let things cool down before slapping you around in the closing minutes of the record. This repackaging includes an unreleased track called “Piss” because why wouldn’t it be? The song holds up alongside most of the original track list, even if the overall feel sounds more like a product of their industrial strength follow-up, Far Beyond Driven.
On the twentieth anniversary of this truly awesome album, the legacy of this formidable band is precious all that remains. In an era that has seen reunions by most every band that hit their commercial stride during the Clinton administration, the reformation of Pantera remains an impossibility with the 2004 murder of Dimebag Darrell. His shooting death came on my birthday, another personal association I make with the band, but I prefer to think of the man and the music he wrote with his brother Vinnie Paul and bassist Rex Brown in the context of that night at the bar a couple years prior when it was easier to laugh about just how much ass these motherfuckers kicked.
Artist:
www.pantera.com/
www.facebook.com/Pantera
Album:
The twentieth anniversary reissue of Vulgar Display Of Power is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
