Vinnie Paul Retrospective, Part III: Far Beyond Driven

FAR BEYOND DRIVEN (1994) *** and 1/2

Okay.  So.  [Rubs hands and sighs.]  "Far Beyond Driven".  This record has always been a mess.  It's like a teenager in a way: hyper-aggressive, drawn intently to sex and violence and trying as hard as it fucking can to be the most unique and most powerful being in its vicinity.  Wait.  Am I projecting?  Because damn, that has me pegged for most of the 90's.

"Strength Beyond Strength" screams about harnessing the negativity of the world to overthrow its power structure.  The line "The president, in submission / He holds out his hand on your television and / Draws back a stump"; for the longest time I thought that was a weed reference because of the earlier line about "Leagalize dope in your pristine streets", like "Draw back a stump" was another way to say "rolls up a doob" or something.  But no, it's saying the president extends a hand in concession and gets it torn the fuck off.  I just got that after 20 years of listening to this record.  I'm a bit slow.

"Becoming" is known for that riff.  If you know Pantera, you know what I'm talking about.  Wah-wah WEEEEAh won-won.  (That whammy petal, tho!)  Unfortunately, the rest of the song is a little...it's not bad, but it definitely feels like it's missing something.  Like a bridge or...I dunno.  Subject matter wise, it's less substantive than "Strength", being on the power trip/rock star shit and being bigger than God.  Which, let's face it, is fun to scream along to when you want to feel strong, so yo.

"5 Minutes Alone" is a lot uglier now.  For one, those inverted chords, son!  That shit sound philthy!!!  Anyway, it's a little hard to get behind a white supremacist bitching about journalists portraying him as such.  You are what you are, dude.  The title is from a father saying he wanted five minutes alone with Anselmo after his son was injured at a Pantera show, allegedly after Anselmo jumped off stage and attacked him.  That, it turns out, didn't happen (so far as I could tell), so this is dude pounding his chest in response and turning it into a battle cry against any nay-sayers.  All things considered, I'll stick to Nonpoint's cover from 2010; it's not as good, but doesn't contain as much baggage.

"I'm Broken" is still fucking phenomenal.  One of this band's best songs.  It's about Anselmo's back problems which would get him hooked on pain pills and eventually heroin.  But holy fuck does it slam.

"Good Friends And A Bottle Of Pills" is the worst song this band ever recorded.  It doesn't just sound like shit, it's based on a true story about how Anselmo was Mr. Steal Yo Girl one night, and goes into swaggering, way too proud of itself detail!  There aren't any lyrics; just mumbling and screaming.  It sounds like the whole band was high as shit twice: once when recording it and once when okaying its release.

"Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks" is what we have in the mid-album slow, long slot.  It clocks in at 7:01, making it the second longest Pantera song behind "Cemetery Gate" (by two seconds, but both songs have long fade outs, so who really knows?).  It's not bad, but it's a song that doesn't work nearly as well unless you've warmed up to the rest of the album, which on first listen I hadn't.  It's drawn out, like there's not enough happening.  It's basically an arpeggio, a 16th note jackhammer section in D, a grindy chorus, repeat repeat repeat with a solo thrown in.  But if that's your jam, then that's your jam.

"Slaughtered" has a great opening riff.  It's out to crush; to rend; to flatten; to destroy.  I've never liked the lyrics; they're too esoteric for the atmosphere, and the vocals are too slurred to properly convey the anger.  I'd forgotten about the middle section completely, so that was a pleasant surprise.  This was a nice shot of adrenaline in an otherwise enervated pocket of the album, because man.  If it was "Good Friends", "Hard Lines" then "25 Years" right after, that would have been too much of a slog.

"25 Years" is about Phil Anselmo fighting with his father and depicts an abusive situation.  It lays out its case, justifies itself in its own head, then plots its violent revenge.  Thing is, talking about abusive parents and guardians was a big thing in rock at the time.  And people were relating to it; not just in the "yeah, fuck my parents!" kind of way.  A lot of kids hearing this were stuck in broke, abusive households and songs like "25 Years" helped them vent their frustrations in a way they may not have otherwise been able to channel.  That was a new thing.  It got played the fuck out by the end of the decade to where this sounds like hyperbolic parody, but put back into context it's not ridiculous at all to think of Anselmo (or whatever rock star in his place) branding themselves as the "bastard father of those thousands of ugly, criticized unwanted...the ones with fathers just like you."

"Shedding Skin" is cool musically.  It's got enough bluesiness and weird note choices to make it more than the hyper-aggressive tell-off it becomes.  I wish I hadn't read up on it, because it's about a jilted boyfriend using his superpower of FUCKING ANGER FOREVER BIIIITCH to scream away the pain of a failed relationship and putting himself over as sooo much better than the woman.  If I could have remained ignorant of the sex context (which should have been obvious in hindsight), I could have kept jamming to it as a "FUCK YOU!" thing, because I have unresolved anger issues that I love placating by screaming metal songs.  But now I've gotta think about Phil Anselmo screwing, and that's just icky.

"Use My Third Arm" is a lot better on its own.  By track 10 I was going through anger fatigue.  When this comes up on random, it's a "Turn this shit up right now and hope we don't go around any curves because I'm gonna pound the SHIT out of this steering wheel!!!" type of songs.  I wanna fuck shit UP when I hear it.  On the album, it's kinda lost in the shuffle because, like I said, this is a bit of a slog.  "Far Beyond Driven" suffers from trying to be too goddam hard for too goddam long.  And like priapism, the climax takes too long to achieve and is never worth it.  (Okay, now take that statement and bear in mind the original album cover, which was a drill bit going into a wide open pair of ass cheeks.  FUCK this band had terrible taste in album art.)

"Throes Of Rejection" is a hard as nails, percussive assault, but then Phil has to dribble his limp, bleeding dick all over the verses after he finally came, and it just oozes "pathetic".  Screaming about not getting the girl and not being able to control his urges and "Oh woe is me, my dick is at fault, not me".  Take Phil out and this song is fucking incredible; put him back in and it's...fine if you can ignore him, which ain't hard on the verses since he mumbles anyway.

"Planet Caravan" is a completely out of place cool down after all aggression in the solar system has been spent.  It's necessary to make sure you don't die or bite through your tongue, but it doesn't really fit.  It comes out of nowhere, cross fading with the ending of "Throes", which was pretty damn harsh.  "Caravan" is a Black Sabbath cover, done on acoustic guitars and with bongos for percussion.  It's faithful to the original, though tighter, so I guess I prefer this version better.

"Far Beyond Driven" is self-indulgent, brutal, problematic, punishing, but perfect in just enough places to still be enjoyable.  It's great in spite of its flaws.  It became the first really hard metal album to debut at number one on the Billboard charts.  It only went platinum though, selling a little more than half of "Vulgar Display Of Power".  That's the thing.  Pantera were influential as fuck and they cast a shadow (pun intended since that's what "I'll Cast A Shadow" is about; more on that later) over the entire genre that made them seem like a way bigger deal than the numbers would indicate.  Tool's best selling album hasn't even cracked 4 million.  Slayer's "Reign In Blood" "probably went platinum" according to Rick Rubin, but even he isn't sure.

For all the influence this band had on not just the acts that followed but all the listeners, it seems impossible that only a million people bought this.  Pantera got a decent amount of radio play, but it wasn't overwhelming; not 'til Dimebag died anyway.  Same with MTV rotation.  They were in the mix, but according to the numbers...there's no way they should have been so influential.  But they were.  I guess the right people heard it at the right time.

Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the decline of Pantera.  Phil Anselmo's addiction and back problems would take their toll in the face of trying to keep the machine going.  The nadir of which, we'll talk about next time...

PART I: The 80's
PART II: Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display Of Power
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)