How many of you were expecting Vulgar Display Of Power? Quite a few I bet. Well fuck that.
As I stated in my VDOP post last September, that album, and the video for Walk in particular, opened a huge metal door that might otherwise have remained closed. But in hindsight, I like both Far Beyond Driven (1994) and The Great Southern Trendkill much better. Cowboys From Hell, you say? Meh. Overrated.
By the mid 90's, relations within the band were at an all time low, singer Phil Anselmo's heroin addiction was getting increasingly worse by the day (he even OD'd a couple of times), he travelled on a separate tourbus from his band mates (whom he barely spoke to anymore) and his time on stage was spent rambling and mumbling incoherently and cursing whoever or whatever bugged him at the moment. Occasionally he'd sing a song. Then he'd ramble for another ten minutes.
Perhaps this was one of the reasons The Great Southern Trendkill became Pantera's angriest and most brutal recording. A pitch black, claustrophobic album without even a hint of sunshine through the thick clouds. One look at the cover and you might expect what the record sounds like - a huge fucking evil snake ready to bite your face off. If that doesn't do it for you, perhaps the Se7en-like scribblings in the lyric sheet will drive the point home.
Another reason may have been Anselmo's side project Down (which had released its debut album NOLA in 1995) that steered him in a darker direction. But more than anything it was probably Pantera's statement on the current state of metal in the U.S.
After years of grunge and with nu metal emerging and growing ever stronger, metal was just about the untrendiest thing on the block. So naturally the band who were the poster boys of heavy fucking metal only five years prior decided to make a point - we're metal, metal is awesome, and go fuck yourself if you don't agree.
After a decade or so of Judas Priest inspired glam metal, Pantera in the late 80's and early 90's pioneered what became known as "groove metal" along with Prong, Machine Head, Exhorder and few others. Basically a slower form of thrash with hardcore style singing, to simplify the genre to an absurd degree.
On The Great Southern Trendkill however, little of that remained. Drag The Waters is really the only song evoking the bouncy Walk-style grooves of old. The rest is either violent and furious attacks (Suicide Note Pt 2, the title track, Sandblasted Skin) or moody, meandering death blues dirges unlike anything they had done up til then (10's, Floods).
Even the balladry of old was gone. No Cemetary Gates, no Hollow, no This Love, no Planet Caravan. Instead we get the acoustic Suicide Note Pt 1 which, well... let's just say it lives up to its name.
Anselmo had also become a fan of grindcore and black metal and invited Anal Cunt ringleader Seth Putnam to contribute some hellish screams straight from the abattoir. Anselmo had adopted quite an impressive pig squeal of his own, so it's not always easy to tell the two loonies apart. A lot of the time it sounds like a couple of drunken junkies (which, to be honest, is exactly what they were) taking turns puking bile on the mic.
To further the separation from Anselmo and the rest of the band, he recorded his vocals away from the others, in Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) house in New Orleans. A house Reznor later sold to actor John Goodman. A bit of useless trivia I'm sure you were aching for.
But enough about Phil Anselmo, his three guilty parties were on high form as well. Rex Brown and Vinnie Paul were easily one of the tightest rhythm sections metal had ever seen, and Dimebag Darrell's riffs were more evil and fucked than ever. Following Dime's death in 2004, the solo for Floods has been hailed as one of his very best. I've never been a big fan of guitar solos and usually zone out during them, so I wouldn't know. What I do know is that the reverb laden guitar sound in the outro of Floods is one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard.
That's all for now, #20 coming up tomorrow.
(mp3) Pantera - The great southern trendkill
(mp3) Pantera - 10's (recommended!)
(mp3) Pantera - Floods
Buy The Great Southern Trendkill @ Amazon.com.
Floods live:
1 comments:
Finally! Some truth. GSTK is their best, hands down. Ugly, beautiful, heavy, classic. I don't want to drool all over the album but it pretty much makes Pantera an all-time classic in my mind. Nobody does music like this. It makes their other albums seem like syrup-covered sporks compared to a blood-stained cleaver. I might be wrong but probably not. Great review.
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