Review Summary: Pantera have broke a record with this disc - The most overrated metal band releases the most overrated metal album with the most overrated metal guitarist.
We all remember the Pantera between 1983 - 1988, yet we all seem to forget it. I am talking about Glam Metal Pantera - a band that its whole existence is dedicated to getting in the Glam Metal scene, the popular metal scene back in their days, a thing they failed to accomplish. And thus, after failing five times in a row and heading nowhere, Pantera finally decided that they need to change their music style if they want to make money, so with their recently joined singer Phil Anselmo they decided to create a new and uniqe sound - a sound that will later on be praised by 12 year old kids that have just started playing guitar and are so very excited about their amazing ability to play one of the greatest Thrash Metal masterpieces ever, 'Walk'.
With the driving success of their first 'new sound' record Cowboys From Hell, which was still quite enjoyable for me , Pantera(or should I say Pantera's fans?) have crowned themselves the kings of Thrash Metal, and apparently the kings of Metal too, and with this pretentious spirit they have created Vulgar Display Of Power - Pantera's lowest point.
This album was similar to Cowboys From Hell in general , but it had some different characteristics to it. For example, Phil Anselmo have decided that actually singing is only for pussies like Joey Belladonna, so he completley abandoned every singing quality he somewhat had on CFH and started screaming like a horny starved goat that will somehow make 13 year old kids think that they are listening to manly Thrash Metal when they hear him.
Dimebag Darrel, after gaining mainsteram success, have completly stopped playing the variety of styles he was forced to play on CFH, and started playing the same down-tuned simple riffs over and over again 52 minutes into the album. No stand-out solos too. (Talking about overrated)
The drummer and the bassist (Does anyone know their name? becuase even wikipedia didnt include those insignificants in the personnel of the album) are doing the same job they did for the past six records - playing in the background and not standing out. Which I have to admit, they do pretty damn good.
The lyrics in this album can be described in two words, cheesy and arrogant. Funnily enough, those two words can also describe VToP or Pantera for that matter. The main idea here is "You cant tell me what to do, I take no *** from anyone, Im bald and that makes me brutal."
The only thing left for me to cover is the production, which is irrelevant to the review but still is quite good, and the artwork, which is a great summary of the intentions behind the album; "WE PUNCH YOU IN FACE WE SO MANLY"
In short, VDoP symbolizes for me the commercialization of Pantera. Repetitive riffs, wannabe "thrash" screams and childish arrogant lyrics are the things that make this album so annoying to hear, or even hear about. Pantera is all thats wrong about metal - four pricks that think they are so ***ing tough and deserve everything.
Still, I have to admit that the most annoying thing about Pantera is their fans, as they think that Pantera is the best Metal band, and if this band wasnt so overrated, I mightve rated this album a point higher and for sure wouldnt hate this album that much.
