Pantera- Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

When I first heard this album it was my first exposure to the really heavy stuff. At that time it just sounded like a relentless wall of heaviness. Soon after, of course, I became accustomed to the heavy stuff and came to appreciate the musicianship.

That’s not to say we can’t have a laugh at Pantera’s silly ‘80s existence, or that we can’t acknowledge that Phil Anselmo has been forgiven a few too many racist comments. But nevertheless this is the one Pantera record that is indispensable, although there three others that are rather good.

This album may be the second of their seriously heavy 90s incarnation, but it’s the first to have eliminated all trace of what they were before, with impressive guitars from the late Dimebag Darrell but none of the little guitar hints of their previous existence. For a heavy band Pantera, often called “groove metal”, do indeed have a groove to their sound not usually heard in most mainstream seriously heavy bands.

Most importantly, this album is full of killed songs like “Walk” and “This Love”. And this album evokes good times when the seriously heavy stuff was popular.