I purchased the Texan combo's third record (the first two, 'Projects From The Jungle' and 'Metal Magic' of no real note) after a degree of hype but failed to be moved by it. Sure, Dimebag Darrell ended up a guitar god as his axe spews forth countless masterful, lead weight riffs, and of course Mr Anselmo at the helm kinda chews on James Hetfield's delivery and spits it out with more of a wolfen drool. 'Cowboys...' is considered the start of Pantera's metal domination, a band who single handedly pulled metal through the '90s whilst the genre succumbed to the grunge blues. Even so, this is a band you either love or hate and I'm stuck somewhere towards the latter....I'm sure some of you out there in the metal void will be cursing me for saying it, but there was something about Pantera that didn't work for me. Was it the purity of its aggression and the fact it didn't need to rely on Satan or hairspray to boost sales ? Maybe. I won't deny the heavy grooves on offer, the title cut bounces then leaps high before crunching down into the skull, and 'Psycho Holiday', with its now familiar guitar assault, bruises the soul. However, it was as if Pantera's emergence signified the end of straight up Satanic-influenced metal. 'Cowboys...' followed by the even heavier 'Vulgar Display Of Power' kind of saw in a new generation of metal terrorist's who appeared to be more muscle than leather. Maybe I'm being protective over the history of theatrical metal, and will certainly nod to Mr Anselmo for his obsession with many of metal's classic, and Satanic influenced bands. Even so, the cold battery of 'Primal Concrete Sledge', the chug-a-chug of 'Domination', and similarly brutal 'Heresy' stoked no fire's in my mind. Maybe I just didn't get it, but the Priest obsessed 'Shattered' gave off an air of cold steel against the skin. Whilst the remaining cuts all followed in a similar, ravaging vein, all fuelled by Anselmo's cut-throat vocal assault, I found myself unphased by it, hesitant to take my shirt off, pretend I had muscles and swig down a beer in one.
It's certainly manly metal, 'The Art Of Shredding' and 'The Sleep' all muscular in their raging and flexing, but I'm left behind in the shadows of '80s metal, refusing to shave my head and tattoo my soul for the sake of a new brand of metal that would strike deadly during the '90s. Atrocious cover too.
7/10
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