Pantera - Reinventing The Steel
The last album of thrash gods Pantera,
Reinventing The Steel was a decidedly sour note to leave on.
Personal battles and growing tension between the band members came to a head as they split for good after this album, but signs were very prominent beforehand of what was to come. Vocalist Phil Anselmo's increasingly unpredictable behavior which peaked before the recording of previous album
The Great Southern Trendkill (seeing Phil overdose on heroin, which he was taking to numb his ever increasing back pain and clinically die for five minutes) resulted in a dark and brutal album that had none of the fast thrash staples of
Cowboys From Hell or
Vulgar Display of Power. Gone were the classic riffs, solos you could air guitar to all day and lyrics about pride and being number one against all opposition, self-loathing and pure hatred was in against a soundscape of pure abrasion. Pantera had evolved to a darker place, both musically and within their career. Cut to four years later and we have a follow up album,
Reinventing The Steel. Logically, following the progression of Pantera albums from the glam days with Terry Glaze to
Cowboys From Hell all the way up to
The Great Southern Trendkill,
Reinventing The Steel should be a case of the band progressing to a gradually heavier and more intense sound.
Pantera actually took a step to the left in many ways with this album. It's a lot more experimental, and the energy here shows spark within the band again. The flange explosion intro of
Hellbound sets up what could be something very good, climaxing with a drop into the screaming lyrics and pounding drums of the chorus. It is a short but excellent opener which shows great promise for the rest of the album. The next track,
Goddamn Electric, is fairly average. It's very different for a Pantera song, featuring a stoned metal swing that moves along with a very loose kind of droning stagger. Phil's lyrics edge on moronic, and though it's not bad there's something very off for me in the lyrics and feel of it that i don't like in this song. Recorded backstage at a concert, with Kerry King providing a lead as a guest i'd expect more. The next two tracks,
Yesterday Don't Mean *** and
You Got To Belong To It show alarming signs of a weak album. Once again, as in
Goddamn Electric the songs are slight with the instrumentation being mostly experimental and interesting, but Anselmo's lyrics being an undeniable weak link. The songs as a whole just don't seem to gel as well as they could, if you are expecting 'classic' Pantera style anthems you will be disappointed though there are some good moments here.
Revolution Is My Name saves the album to a degree after the patchy first section. This is where Pantera's new found experimentation pays off, Dimebag's effects laden slide intro, Rex's bassline and Vinnie Paul's drums working together at the start is pure anticipation. By the time it falls into that killer old school riff, you know they've still got it. This is a pure tight metal anthem, made for being played live and snapping necks doing windmills with some killer leads and great lyrics.
Death Rattle follows with the song title being a perfect summary of what it sounds like, lead by fast, crushing drums it is one of the stronger songs on here. The next track,
We'll Grind That Axe For A Long Time is my personal favourite, with a slow menacing lilt to the guitar riff and some excellent lyrics from Phil. It's a nicely foreboding Pantera classic.
Moving on,
Uplift is the worst Pantera song i have ever heard. I could get over the horrible sounding tone of the drum beat, as the production on the energetic guitars sounds promising but when Phil starts singing no. The lyrics are stupid, and the way he barks it just sounds terrible. I've given it many chances but it just doesn't do it for me, i can give it points for originality as it sounds different from anything else Pantera has done but besides that i can't stand it. The next two tracks take the album out on a bleak note, with the apocalyptic melancholy of
It Makes Them Disappear. The chorus effects laden intro and a slow, driving palm muted riff are sombre at best with some excellent lyrics, providing an appropriate sense of gritty atmosphere.
I'll Cast A Shadow follows a similar trend, but seems a lot more like filler then the song before it.
All up,
Reinventing The Steel to me is a transitional album for the band. Pantera seems energetic after recording through a period of self-loathing and hatred summed up on
The Great Southern Trendkill, much of it a return to some great metal you can headbang to and not give a damn about the ideology behind it. But the suffering behind the band is present, you can sense in the way the songs don't seem as tight as they used to. They were steadily slipping apart since the
Far Beyond Driven days with patchy material (
Cowboys From Hell or
Vulgar Display of Power distinctive as their two most consistent and influential albums), and whilst
Reinventing The Steel continues this trend further in some areas it improves it in others. It's a pity we did not get to see what could of come after this with another album as i believe they could of been sharper then ever. It's a good album with some great moments but some really bad ones as well.
After this album, vocalist Phil Anselmo took an extended 'holiday' for personal rehabilitation with his back troubles. He proceeded to record several albums with other projects such as Down & Superjoint Ritual over a 2 year period, leaving the Abbott brothers Dimebag and Vinnie waiting for him to get his act together and return. Deciding it was a spit in the face and a personal insult, they decided to disband and form Damageplan causing a gigantic ruckus with Phil that ended in a massive fallout, an interview with Anselmo quoting that" Dimebag deserves to be severely beaten". We all know what happened after that. As for the end of Pantera, it's a shame
Reinventing The Steel was their last album in my eyes. It feels like a transitional album to me, and a new album could of given them time to sort out their differences and create truly awesome music again.
