My day started off inauspiciously.
I forgot to make my breakfast and then burned my tongue trying to drink my
coffee too fast. Things improved from there though, and I’m home again and
writing.
I am trying to set more time aside
to write in 2016 and so far it is working out well. The extra hour a night
energizes me and the result is that I’m able to stay up later, so I don’t lose
any more time behind the wall of sleep than is necessary.
Why yes, careful reader, that was
an allusion to a Black Sabbath song. In honour of those fathers of metal, let’s
review my next album, which is by one of their unruly children.
Disc 821 is….Cowboys From Hell
Artist: Pantera
Year of Release: 1990
What’s up with the Cover? Thanks to the miracle of photoshopping,
we get to enjoy the Pantera boys tearin’ it up in a turn of the century public
house. It is scenes like this that inspired prohibition.
How I Came To Know It: Back in April I reviewed my other
Pantera album (1992’s “Vulgar Display of Power”). I liked it so much I
did a little Youtube diving of Pantera’s other albums. “Cowboys From Hell”
emerged the clear winner, so I purchased it.
How It Stacks Up: I only have two Pantera albums, and if you’ve
been reading carefully you already know which two. Of those, I’ll put “Cowboys
From Hell” in at number one.
Ratings: 4 stars
Ten minutes into my walk home today I was thinking, “man,
these Pantera guys are heavy as hell!” and then I realized I hadn’t even turned
on the booster amp in my headphones. Once I did it was even better.
Pantera are tight as hell and every song is a clinic
in how to shred hard and heavy. When this album came out I had temporarily left
metal behind for folk music. “Cowboys From Hell” is a nice reminder that metal
hadn’t stopped growing just because I had temporarily stopped listening. I’m
glad to be making up for lost time now.
As I mentioned on my previous Pantera review, these
guys are the perfect blend of speed metal and chunky riffs. Dimebag Darrell’s guitar
riffs may seem simple, but they have a power and energy that gets your head
moving nonetheless. The melody always seems to be diving deeper down in search
of something thicker to wallow in. Usually it finds it.
The songs will sometimes start with 45 seconds or so
of slower intro, or there might be a bar or two of guitar solo once they’re
going, but for the most part this is music that thumps you in your lower spine.
Singer Philip Anselmo’s savage and grating rock voice is the perfect match for
Dimebag’s power groove.
While this album is heavy, it manages it in a way
that doesn’t sacrifice melodic quality, and for this reason I liked it slightly
better than “Vulgar Display of Power.” “Cemetery
Gates” is a good example, alternating between a slower tempo and a metal
groove. It also shows that Anselmo doesn’t just yell – the man can sing as well.
That said, this is not an album about lyrics, at
least not for me. I often had a hard time hearing the words, and when I could
it was pretty simple metal fare. On “Message
In Blood” I was confused by the chorus, which goes:
“It’s a message in blood
It’s your cryptic warning.”
Leaving a message in blood seems like a pretty
powerful statement, and it’s likely an awful lot of work as well. Given that,
the narrator might have thought about making sure that message wasn’t so
cryptic. Later he expresses his isolation with:
“No one cares to understand my
Demented means.”
Just a thought, but if you wanted to be understood then
don’t make your message so cryptic! But
I digress…
The songs on “Cowboys From Hell” are relatively
long, with over half of them over five minutes, but they rarely feel it. This
is music that moves along at a good clip, and never gives you time to get
bored. Unlike a lot of lesser heavy music, the tracks are so appealing it never
feels like your ears are under siege. Instead, it is like a lush garden of
sound.
That said, the twelve tracks total over 57 minutes,
and while I couldn’t say for sure what I’d cut, I think I’d prefer a 10 track,
48 minute album. It is made harder by the fact that while relatively few tracks
stood out, the record as a whole has a nice cohesive feel.
I’ve only had this album for a relatively short
time, and listening to it again for this review I was left with the distinct
impression that the more time I gave it, the more I would like it. This is the
principle calling card of a strong record.
Best
tracks: Cowboys From Hell, Heresy, Clash With Reality,
Cemetery Gates
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