### Pantera: Far beyond the great southern cowboys vulgar hits

#### 29/04/08 || Daemonomania

Dun dun DUDUDUDUNN, I’m BROOOOOKENNNN! Yep, its time to crack open an MGD and party like it’s 1994. I would crack open a PBR, but that swill gives me the shits.

So in these dark days of Canadian bacon-blasting death metal, rawer than your knees after a visit to the rectory Black Metal, and more polished than yer knob metalcore, it’s easy to lose sight of how many of us got into the genre in the first place. Sure, some metalheads were born in 1498 and were rocking to the brutal drumming in “Space truckin’” while sporting a Motörhead shirt, some were born several years later and watched Lars Ulrich get burped by his mother in Fort Lauderdale, and then there’s the kids who just graduated from emo to the big leagues and seem to have the harshest criticism for bands that aren’t “metal” enough. But right in between there is a generation of youngsters who grew up on “Master of puppets,” “Doggystyle,” and “Far beyond driven.” It is for these folks that I will now review the “Southern Dallas cowboys’ greatest fuckin’ hits and racial slurs and heroin overdoses and shit” album.

Not that I’m one of those people, mind you.

Sure, I grew up in that timeframe where Pantera and Metallica would have been appealing to me, but I’m ashamed to announce that I was very much into punk and really didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Then a little album called “Soulless” came along and changed my life, but that’s a whole different story. Basically, I went right into extreme metal snob mode and missed out on those transition bands that bring so many into the fold. I’m rediscovering some of them now, and they do supply some nice easy-listening when I’ve had enough Hypokras for the day.

What does all this personal history garbage have to do with Pantera? Nothing, really. Just an over-long intro to a review about a greatest hits albums full of songs that most people already know. Why review a greatest hits album of a band who went to number one in the charts? Why bother releasing this in the first place? If someone’s even a mild Pantera fan, they’ve got all these tracks already. Is it the dreaded CASHGRAB?

I’d say not. It seems to be a nice cherry-pickin’ of what Pantera’s put out over the years. Let’s face it, there’s a whole lotta filler on every one of the Greatest New Jersey Child Pornographers’ albums, so it’s nice to cut right through the dross and get to the singles. Of course, there’s some filler on this one too (please stop covering Black Sabbath, PLEASE), but it saves the skip button some exercise. Plus they throw in a bonus DVD of Pan’tera Patrick’s greatest beer bonging groove metal urinary tract infection videos, most of which look like they were filmed at the same concert.

Does this sound appealing to you yet? No? Well, take into consideration that I got it for free. There ya go. If you have moderate nostalgic erection for das half-metal of the 90’s, find the Halford scream in “Cemetary gates” funny every time, and can get this fucker for free, do so. If not, just buy a few six packs of cheap beer, put on all of your Pantera albums on shuffle with the skip button at the ready, and use your vivid imagination to create tuff guy videos in your mind. Then smoke weed, do heroin, and avoid ex-Marines.

7 greatest anal screwdriving funky bunch southern fried vulgar displays of bird ownership out of 10

NB: Surprise surprise, there ain’t any shit from their glam metal days on here. Who woulda thunk it?

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Rhino
- Website: www.pantera.com
- Band
- Philbert: vocals
- Rex: bass
- Vinnie: drums
- Dimebag: guitars

- Tracklist
- 01. Cowboys From Hell
- 02. Cemetary Gates
- 03. Walk
- 04. Mouth for War
- 05. This Love
- 06. I’m Broken (and out of cheap beer)
- 07. Becoming
- 08. 5 Minutes Alone
- 09. Planet Caravan (the original is better)
- 10. Drag The Waters
- 11. Where You Come From
- 12. Cat Scratch Fever (again, the original is better)
- 13. I’ll Cast A Shadow
- 14. Goddamn Electric
- 15. Revolution is My Name
- 16. Hole in The Sky (never heard the original, but it has to be better than this)