Vinnie Paul Retrospective Part II: Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display Of Power
Welcome to part two of our look back on the career of Vinnie Paul Abbot. In today's installment, we look at the two high water marks for Pantera, his body of work, and 90's metal in general. Initially, I wanted to throw all the 90's stuff in one neat package, but turns out I had a lot to say about these two. So let's get started with:
COWBOYS FROM HELL (1990) **** and 1/3
Album covers were never this band's forte. This one is a hell of a step up from everything they'd done to this point, but man is it schlocky. Still, it kind of works.
The opener is one of the best introductions you could ask for for a band. It's got teeth but not too menacing to scare people away. It has life and it paints a picture of what this music is about. It's got a great solo section and breakdown. "Cowboys From Hell" is one of Pantera's best songs, period.
"Primal Concrete Sledge" suffered a bit from my weariness of its singer on first listen. It made me cringe a little to think of where the macho bravado was coming from, but on second listen it hasn't bothered me nearly as much; I've listened to the rest of the catalogue, and this is nothing. The song itself is still gritty and tipped their hand as to what "Vulgar Display Of Power" would sound like.
I really like "Psycho Holiday". It's so weird. It's got unconventional key choices and proggy guitar doodles in the pre-chorus, plus that swingy beat puts everything off-kilter while keeping it solid. It's like "Ride The Lightning" era Metallica covered "I'm The One" by Van Halen.
"Cowboys" is Pantera's most technical album. There's a lot of rhythmic twists and turns and reliance on precision they let fall by the wayside later on. It's also the most melodic of their famous releases and the least concerned with punching you in the face. Not that we didn't all listen to Pantera to get punched in the face; fuck, look at the cover of their next album. But looking back almost 30 years, it's easier to appreciate its harmonious merits. Especially the solos: "Psycho Holiday", "Cemetery Gate" and "Domination" in particular are pretty hot shit. And Anselmo could sing. MAN you wouldn't have known that five years later.
Overall "Cowboys" feels a smidge too long, but other than "Shattered", I'm not sure what I'd cut. Maybe that's all it needs. It feels like "Domination" should be the beginning of side B instead of the end of side A, y'know? By getting rid of "Shattered" and maybe "Message In Blood", this could have been tighter (and I like both of those songs; "Message In Blood" much moreso, but eh).
Let's see. What else can I say? I fucking love "Medicine Man"; way more than I should, because oy vay those lyrics are dumb, but holy SHIT that groove. "The Sleep" may be the most forgotten deep cut of 90's Pantera besides "Uplift", but everything about it is executed so perfectly it saves itself from the doofy concept of saving the world by cryogenically preserving it or whatever. They lean into it and make it work. This is probably my favorite album I'm going to review during this exercise; I've only ever given above four stars a handful of times, but this bad boy deserves it. It is a special, spectacular listen.
VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER (1992) *** and 2/3
I'm glad I gave these 90's albums the two listen treatment, because I couldn't stand this the first time through. Tracks one through three suffered from crippling levels of overplay in my teenage years to where I aaalllmost ruined them for good, but this second go 'round I'm finding "Walk" more than tolerable. (As long as I don't think about Anselmo, that is.)
This album, right from go (or even before that because the cover is a guy getting punched in the face) is about MACHO BRAVADO. I capitalized that because it's that up front. The fact that "Mouth For War" is a gentle introduction to ease you into "A New Level" and "Walk" with lines like "Bones in traction" and "No one can piss on this determination!!!" screamed with all their might shows you what you're getting into.
On first pass, "A New Level" was dripping with the self-assuredness of a bully who knows they'll never be brought down for their actions, and "Walk" is that bully ascending to godhood as the crowd becomes their mob. It's rattling your sabres in the guise of pumping up the little guy when you're really encouraging them to act like the douchebros that made them feel small in the first place.
The worst part is I bought that shit hook, line and sinker because I was that little guy. I felt like that for way more of my life than I should have. It's embarrassing. I turtled up hard and am just now starting to peek out in my late 30's. I had a burning rage inside myself that made me identify with lines like "When I channel my hate to productive, I don't find it hard to impress." I took pride in my superpower of using anger as my fuel. It made me feel strong. And it hollowed me out until I found myself not able to feel any emotions besides apathy and anger. It's no way to live, kids. Needless to say, I look at this differently than I did 20 years ago.
Musically, this is a more straightforward album than "Cowboys". It has weird rhythmic tics, mostly from Vinnie Paul, but the riffs and solos are more streamlined for maximum impact. And it works. This was the perfect album for them to make at the time. Parts of it haven't endured as well as others - some of the lyrics were lame then and remain so now - but from a musical standpoint, it's still pretty solid. You can't deny the breakdown in "No Good" or the opening of "By Demons Be Driven" or all of "A New Level"; that shit's like candy to a metalhead. Gimme gimme gimme.
But that love for brutality is tampered by how the world has evolved in the 26 years since this came out. "This Love" seems particularly grievous now, depicting either a murder/suicide or at the very least a relationship that gets to the level where Anselmo threatens it. Depiction and advocacy are two different things, yes, but it doesn't make it any easier to listen to now that...That's just it, isn't it? Now that what? We realize domestic violence is bad? We apparently didn't in the 90's; they played the shit out of this song. Probably still do in some places. What the fuck were we thinking? Maybe you think I'm overreacting, but as a kid, metal, cable news and like pro wrestling were where I got my pre-teen and teen views of the world. That's how I learned how to be a person and how the world worked. I wish I was kidding.
A lot of the tough guy shit seems laughable now though, like they were gonna lead an army of disaffected youth to change the world. But that's what everybody thinks when they're young. "Rise" gets on my nerves a little bit for that reason and the sarcastic-ass delivery. What is he doing with his voice? That's the two things holding it back from being a great song instead of merely good.
And then we come to "No Good (Attack The Radical)". It's a plea for racial harmony in America (which "Rise" made a few mentions of as well) written by a guy who's career was plagued with accusations of being racist. (Accusations he was able to deftly explain away until 2016 when he got drunk and threw out a Nazi salute and yelled "White Power!" at the top of his lungs. His career's been on a bit of a downturn since then, but shit, Nazis are hot again, so I'm kinda surprised. Give it two years; he'll be back like Hulk Hogan.) Despite this hypocrisy, I've gotta give the song it's due; it's one of the best on the album. It's beefy, it's brawny, it's got that fucking awesome breakdown and outro...I can't really deny that I still like it a lot.
"Live In A Hole" is pretty ho-hum by comparison and it's the least interesting thing on the album. "Regular People", though it has shit lyrics, is actually pretty fun in spite of itself; just don't try to take it seriously. "By Demons Be Driven" is still heavy as shit, but fuck if I know what "shelled children of the sixth dimension" are to this day.
"Hollow" is the last time we really get to hear Phil Anselmo sing for real, as "Planet Caravan" is mumblecore and "Suicide Note Pt. I" is in a way lower register. This guy had a voice. And this song is raw. It's about his friend who went catatonic after a car accident, and you can feel every fucking inch of what he's belting out here.
This was like trying to review two different albums. At one point I had to stop the review and outline all I wanted to say, and I still dropped about half for the sake of coherence. Shit, I didn't even mention "Fucking Hostile" now that I look back, and that's one of their most famous songs. That one holds up better than most the rest of the album because it's not just a big swingin' dick power trip: it's got three verses about sorta cliché subject matter now, but in 1992, that's where the cliché formed, and they got in early in the year, so credit where it's due. It's also got a rad solo and the drum fill leading into it is still awesome.
Okay, with that out of the way, conclusion time. Rating this album was difficult, because separating art from artist is really tough for me. And I don't like that it was easier to do that on the second listen, because fuck Phil Anselmo. For real. I don't think he could cure cancer and get on my good side, because that doesn't have anything to do with what he did. And what he has been all along: a racist. Unless he makes a real effort to change his ways, privately and in public, there's no coming back for him. And that could take decades, but tough shit. We trusted you for decades, and you made us all look stupid. Trust takes a long time to earn, and longer to re-earn. I started typing this paragraph not expecting this much venom to come out, but I can't help it. I was bitten by a snake I kept in my midst.
What I've taken three pages to say is this album is really good, it shaped the genre for better and worse, but I got a lot of issues with the vocalist. (I didn't even bring up Pantera's liberal use of the Rebel flag on merch and band logos...Fuck....) A lot of people say this is the pinnacle of their catalogue, but after two listens each (on top of the hundreds back in the day,) I've gotta go with "Cowboys". It was more enjoyable.
I promise the next review won't be quite so political, though I can't guarantee these issues won't raise their head in a few more places. Next time, we have two really twisted albums when you stop to think about them, signaling the pinnacle and decline of the band. (Possibly also the other two, but I might just have more to write about these as well because so much goes on.) Keep on truckin'.
PART I: The 80's
PART III: Far Beyond Driven
PART IV: The Great Southern Trendkill
PART V: Official Live 101 Proof and Reinventing The Steel
PART VI: Damageplan
PART VII: Rebel Meets Rebel and Hellyeah (2007)
PART VIII: Hellyeah (2010-2016)
COWBOYS FROM HELL (1990) **** and 1/3
Album covers were never this band's forte. This one is a hell of a step up from everything they'd done to this point, but man is it schlocky. Still, it kind of works.
The opener is one of the best introductions you could ask for for a band. It's got teeth but not too menacing to scare people away. It has life and it paints a picture of what this music is about. It's got a great solo section and breakdown. "Cowboys From Hell" is one of Pantera's best songs, period.
"Primal Concrete Sledge" suffered a bit from my weariness of its singer on first listen. It made me cringe a little to think of where the macho bravado was coming from, but on second listen it hasn't bothered me nearly as much; I've listened to the rest of the catalogue, and this is nothing. The song itself is still gritty and tipped their hand as to what "Vulgar Display Of Power" would sound like.
I really like "Psycho Holiday". It's so weird. It's got unconventional key choices and proggy guitar doodles in the pre-chorus, plus that swingy beat puts everything off-kilter while keeping it solid. It's like "Ride The Lightning" era Metallica covered "I'm The One" by Van Halen.
"Cowboys" is Pantera's most technical album. There's a lot of rhythmic twists and turns and reliance on precision they let fall by the wayside later on. It's also the most melodic of their famous releases and the least concerned with punching you in the face. Not that we didn't all listen to Pantera to get punched in the face; fuck, look at the cover of their next album. But looking back almost 30 years, it's easier to appreciate its harmonious merits. Especially the solos: "Psycho Holiday", "Cemetery Gate" and "Domination" in particular are pretty hot shit. And Anselmo could sing. MAN you wouldn't have known that five years later.
Overall "Cowboys" feels a smidge too long, but other than "Shattered", I'm not sure what I'd cut. Maybe that's all it needs. It feels like "Domination" should be the beginning of side B instead of the end of side A, y'know? By getting rid of "Shattered" and maybe "Message In Blood", this could have been tighter (and I like both of those songs; "Message In Blood" much moreso, but eh).
Let's see. What else can I say? I fucking love "Medicine Man"; way more than I should, because oy vay those lyrics are dumb, but holy SHIT that groove. "The Sleep" may be the most forgotten deep cut of 90's Pantera besides "Uplift", but everything about it is executed so perfectly it saves itself from the doofy concept of saving the world by cryogenically preserving it or whatever. They lean into it and make it work. This is probably my favorite album I'm going to review during this exercise; I've only ever given above four stars a handful of times, but this bad boy deserves it. It is a special, spectacular listen.
VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER (1992) *** and 2/3
I'm glad I gave these 90's albums the two listen treatment, because I couldn't stand this the first time through. Tracks one through three suffered from crippling levels of overplay in my teenage years to where I aaalllmost ruined them for good, but this second go 'round I'm finding "Walk" more than tolerable. (As long as I don't think about Anselmo, that is.)
This album, right from go (or even before that because the cover is a guy getting punched in the face) is about MACHO BRAVADO. I capitalized that because it's that up front. The fact that "Mouth For War" is a gentle introduction to ease you into "A New Level" and "Walk" with lines like "Bones in traction" and "No one can piss on this determination!!!" screamed with all their might shows you what you're getting into.
On first pass, "A New Level" was dripping with the self-assuredness of a bully who knows they'll never be brought down for their actions, and "Walk" is that bully ascending to godhood as the crowd becomes their mob. It's rattling your sabres in the guise of pumping up the little guy when you're really encouraging them to act like the douchebros that made them feel small in the first place.
The worst part is I bought that shit hook, line and sinker because I was that little guy. I felt like that for way more of my life than I should have. It's embarrassing. I turtled up hard and am just now starting to peek out in my late 30's. I had a burning rage inside myself that made me identify with lines like "When I channel my hate to productive, I don't find it hard to impress." I took pride in my superpower of using anger as my fuel. It made me feel strong. And it hollowed me out until I found myself not able to feel any emotions besides apathy and anger. It's no way to live, kids. Needless to say, I look at this differently than I did 20 years ago.
Musically, this is a more straightforward album than "Cowboys". It has weird rhythmic tics, mostly from Vinnie Paul, but the riffs and solos are more streamlined for maximum impact. And it works. This was the perfect album for them to make at the time. Parts of it haven't endured as well as others - some of the lyrics were lame then and remain so now - but from a musical standpoint, it's still pretty solid. You can't deny the breakdown in "No Good" or the opening of "By Demons Be Driven" or all of "A New Level"; that shit's like candy to a metalhead. Gimme gimme gimme.
But that love for brutality is tampered by how the world has evolved in the 26 years since this came out. "This Love" seems particularly grievous now, depicting either a murder/suicide or at the very least a relationship that gets to the level where Anselmo threatens it. Depiction and advocacy are two different things, yes, but it doesn't make it any easier to listen to now that...That's just it, isn't it? Now that what? We realize domestic violence is bad? We apparently didn't in the 90's; they played the shit out of this song. Probably still do in some places. What the fuck were we thinking? Maybe you think I'm overreacting, but as a kid, metal, cable news and like pro wrestling were where I got my pre-teen and teen views of the world. That's how I learned how to be a person and how the world worked. I wish I was kidding.
A lot of the tough guy shit seems laughable now though, like they were gonna lead an army of disaffected youth to change the world. But that's what everybody thinks when they're young. "Rise" gets on my nerves a little bit for that reason and the sarcastic-ass delivery. What is he doing with his voice? That's the two things holding it back from being a great song instead of merely good.
And then we come to "No Good (Attack The Radical)". It's a plea for racial harmony in America (which "Rise" made a few mentions of as well) written by a guy who's career was plagued with accusations of being racist. (Accusations he was able to deftly explain away until 2016 when he got drunk and threw out a Nazi salute and yelled "White Power!" at the top of his lungs. His career's been on a bit of a downturn since then, but shit, Nazis are hot again, so I'm kinda surprised. Give it two years; he'll be back like Hulk Hogan.) Despite this hypocrisy, I've gotta give the song it's due; it's one of the best on the album. It's beefy, it's brawny, it's got that fucking awesome breakdown and outro...I can't really deny that I still like it a lot.
"Live In A Hole" is pretty ho-hum by comparison and it's the least interesting thing on the album. "Regular People", though it has shit lyrics, is actually pretty fun in spite of itself; just don't try to take it seriously. "By Demons Be Driven" is still heavy as shit, but fuck if I know what "shelled children of the sixth dimension" are to this day.
"Hollow" is the last time we really get to hear Phil Anselmo sing for real, as "Planet Caravan" is mumblecore and "Suicide Note Pt. I" is in a way lower register. This guy had a voice. And this song is raw. It's about his friend who went catatonic after a car accident, and you can feel every fucking inch of what he's belting out here.
This was like trying to review two different albums. At one point I had to stop the review and outline all I wanted to say, and I still dropped about half for the sake of coherence. Shit, I didn't even mention "Fucking Hostile" now that I look back, and that's one of their most famous songs. That one holds up better than most the rest of the album because it's not just a big swingin' dick power trip: it's got three verses about sorta cliché subject matter now, but in 1992, that's where the cliché formed, and they got in early in the year, so credit where it's due. It's also got a rad solo and the drum fill leading into it is still awesome.
Okay, with that out of the way, conclusion time. Rating this album was difficult, because separating art from artist is really tough for me. And I don't like that it was easier to do that on the second listen, because fuck Phil Anselmo. For real. I don't think he could cure cancer and get on my good side, because that doesn't have anything to do with what he did. And what he has been all along: a racist. Unless he makes a real effort to change his ways, privately and in public, there's no coming back for him. And that could take decades, but tough shit. We trusted you for decades, and you made us all look stupid. Trust takes a long time to earn, and longer to re-earn. I started typing this paragraph not expecting this much venom to come out, but I can't help it. I was bitten by a snake I kept in my midst.
What I've taken three pages to say is this album is really good, it shaped the genre for better and worse, but I got a lot of issues with the vocalist. (I didn't even bring up Pantera's liberal use of the Rebel flag on merch and band logos...Fuck....) A lot of people say this is the pinnacle of their catalogue, but after two listens each (on top of the hundreds back in the day,) I've gotta go with "Cowboys". It was more enjoyable.
I promise the next review won't be quite so political, though I can't guarantee these issues won't raise their head in a few more places. Next time, we have two really twisted albums when you stop to think about them, signaling the pinnacle and decline of the band. (Possibly also the other two, but I might just have more to write about these as well because so much goes on.) Keep on truckin'.
PART I: The 80's
PART III: Far Beyond Driven
PART IV: The Great Southern Trendkill
PART V: Official Live 101 Proof and Reinventing The Steel
PART VI: Damageplan
PART VII: Rebel Meets Rebel and Hellyeah (2007)
PART VIII: Hellyeah (2010-2016)
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