Pantera - Cowboys From Hell

I love Pantera, but i feel like we've collectively forgotten that they made 4 (believe me i counted as i listened to them) terrible Glam albums before they finally recorded the first actual Pantera album. That's not me being a smart-ass, even Pantera considered Cowboys From Hell the actual first Pantera album. The early Glam stuff was just blatantly copycat trend chasing. Projects In The Jungle has a special place in my heart simply because of the ridiculous mixed-metaphor allusion to Guns'n'Roses, but even i can't call it good. Cowboys From Hell, though, is really good, and probably the first official Groove Metal album ever recorded.

Groove Metal, more ridiculously called Post-Thrash, is pretty simple to define. If it sounds like Pantera and/or White Zombie it's Groove Metal, no further elaboration required. Now let's just listen to it.

It should go without saying, super groovy. Vocally, Phil Anselmo still punctuates phrases with squealy falsetto like he's trying to be Rob Halford or King Diamond, but now it's in counterpoint to Diamond Darryl's even squealier guitar shenanigans (i'm old enough to remember his spontaneous nickname change, and think "wait, you can do that?  Just demand that everyone call you a different nickname? Huh."). That's the thing here, vocals and quitars are completely equal instruments in terms of gruff crunchy riffs, clean harmonic/melodic lushness, and the aforementioned testicle-clenched shrieking. 

Lyrically, it's pretty dark in the sense that they're from Texas. No, that's not right, it's the drugs and depression and anger and politico-religious condemnation they don't like. But, and this is a point i feel like the Metalcore of the last couple decades conveniently forgets, it's not good to feel that way. Sure, step one is yelling "this sucks and i won't tolerate it anymore!," but for step two you kind of have to decide whether you're going to follow the natural progression into full on murderous psychosis or simply walk away and avoid that problem. Pantera, whether you like them or not, totally implies that choosing to continue going insane and turning everything into actual war is not the correct choice. Pantera showing up with a shotgun to prove that point is childish, obviously, but it's 1990 and the only way we can effectively communicate anything is in the form of blatantly caustic sarcasm. Oh great, you metaphorically murdered my childhood, so now i guess i have to come back from the dead and revenge murder everyone. Thanks, that's sure to help. 

Fans of chronological history will note this is smack dab in the middle between the first and second Nirvana albums (if you think childhood is stupid, wait 'til you try navigating the 18-25 demographic). You could certainly miss the detail that we aren't revelling in the terribleness here, but at a certain point it just doesn't make any logical sense outside the context of "look at us, can you not see how ridiculous this entire situation actually is? You are the person with the problem, and it's driving me bonkers in my drug dealer's Cadillac." I'm not saying you have to agree with that sentiment, i'm just saying it doesn't make any sense unless that sentiment is actually real and being felt by the person expressing it. 

And so, in closing, i do not need the tween-ternet to condescendingly inform me that the band was not actually in that old west saloon, i am completely familiar with the concept of placing one photgraph on top of another and taking a 3rd photograph of the combined effect while making absolutely no effort to obscure the act of doing so. The sloppiness is integral to the composition, and communicates that these lunatics are themselves an anachronism. That's me being a smart-ass, assuming you needed clarification.