Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Prologue
Artist #1: Pantera
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[Album 458/1001]

The approximately 200km drive between Windsor and London Ontario is, shall we say, not the most exciting.

In fact, my cousins cleverly dubbed the stretch of highway as “purgatory;” it’s difficult to imagine a more somnolent* stretch of highway.

So naturally, to keep me alert, I put on the group that recorded Cowboys from Hell.

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In high school, I was able to earn some cred with metal aficionados by being able to play the Pantera track Cemetery Gates on guitar (though referring to them as aficionados may have been somewhat less cred-building).

It remains among my favourite metal songs, as it seems to have an ideal balance of smoothness, crunchiness, and messiness.

I’ll use chocolate bars to explain:

 

So why did Cemetery Gates work?

It’s all about balance, or at least, the balance that appeals to me: a Coffee Crisp majority, offset by enough Aero, with a hint of Snickers to close out the track.

Or in graph form…

 

The question is, how was the chocolate bar balance on Vulgar Display of Power?

Just fine, at least for the guitar/bass/drums. I thought the musical arrangements were almost entirely Coffee Crisp (which is just fine in my books), there were moments of Aero (This Love, Hollow) and some forays into Snickers territory. I was quite impressed by Dimebag Darrell; the riffs, the rhythms, the solos. It doesn’t seem like there were an overwhelming amount of overdubs either, solid supporting sound all around from the rhythm section.

Unfortunately, I occasionally felt a bit of an allergic reaction to the singer.

For example, in the track A New Level, his drawn out yelling of “Power” really reminded me of the Hoverboard scene (at 1:42) in Back to the Future II.

I imagine the vocals are the absolute selling point for some Metal foodies.

Others may want to keep epipens at the ready!

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*Cheers Bruce!

**If you immediately thought of the ‘you like your coffee crisp?’ commercial, chances are we’re already friends.