Year Of Metal #031: Pantera - Cowboys From hell
During my particularly metal-averse years - mid-to-late adolescence or thereabouts - Pantera were one of the few heavy acts that I felt I could actually get on board with. The groove of it all seemed to make them far more palatable, offering something a little more fun than just volume and distortion and anger. I can recall the murder of guitarist Dimebag Darrell, who always seemed like a cool dude. Some of my non-metal head friends were into them to some extent, and I could appreciate the work, even if it wasn’t quite for me.
Listening to Cowboys From Hell now, it’s sort of the same situation. It’s clearly a level above a lot of metal records, even if I don’t find so much to connect with emotionally. The 1990 record is their fourth, but the first classic of their oeuvre, shedding the glam/heavy metal trappings of their earlier work in favour of something gnarlier.
That sense of evolution and newly found purpose comes across in the tightness and focus of the songwriting. “Cowboys From Hell” launches straight into a riff that would send any bedroom guitarists racing for their instruments, piling up the grooves, leaving plenty of space for breath. Phil Anselmo may seem a politically questionable sort to say the least, but he’s a great frontman, growling, snarling, yelping. The vocal delivery has similar sway and swagger to the instrumental - it’s loose and confident but no less heavy for it.
And then there’s Dimebag. His guitar playing is simply out of this world across the whole album. It’s some of the most characterful lead work I’ve heard in metal; you could pick him out of an aural line up no bother. In contrast to the Iron Maiden record, his every solo feels essential, a coherent part of each track’s musical conversation. The super fun, swinging “Psycho Holiday” is a high point. It’s a real musical buffet for Darrell, who chucks in a cartoonishly sunny little motif before embarking on a tapping sequence in a nod to his idol Eddie Van Halen. There’s whammy aplenty and several sudden shrieking high notes - you’d have to imagine Tom Morello paid close attention.
The centrepiece is the seven minute “Cemetery Gates”. For a band looking to step away from the more histrionic and camp wing of metal, it’s a bit of a risk chucking in a track of such pomp and grandeur, but boy does it ever work. It’s beautifully structured, never dwelling too long on either the emotional quiet bits or the thrusting, driving bits. Anselmo makes for a convincing metal balladeer; the clean vocals aren’t his strongest suit, which makes his plight sound all the more legit. And as far as riffs go, there can’t be many better in metal history, those pinch harmonics so perfectly deployed.
It’s fair to say the record’s top loaded quite heavily, and the back half never quite recovers from the grandiosity of “Cemetery Gates”. The majority of material chugs along at a similar pace. The musicianship’s great across the board, but there’s a certain level that Cowboys From Hell doesn’t make it back to. For fans of great guitar work and a freer, dare I say cooler sound in metal, though, this remains a key text in the genre.
