The Metal Necessities: Pantera – ‘Vulgar Display Of Power’

Pantera -- Vulgar Display Of Power
Atlantic Records/WEA
Released Feb 25, 1992

I was driving around the other day when I realized that during the lifespan of the Bear Necessities feature, I’d yet to feature anything close to a metal cd. I thought it to be kinda weird considering how big a fan I am of the genre soo I’ve decided to right that wrong now.

Man, Pantera. What can I even really say about them? They were the shit, plain and simple. Metallica may be my favorite metal band and my initial gateway drug into the heavy scene, but Pantera was one of the very first bands I came across and to this day still they still rank pretty highly on the awesome-meter.  Pantera, back in the mid 90s at least, was everwhere. I think that may be because they’re one of those bands that most metal dudes and dudettes are able to agree on. You couldn’t really walk into any random record store and flip through their poster or tshirt collection without coming across at least 1 Pantera item in there amongst the Metallica, AC/DC, and Sabbath stuff and I suppose that was a testament to the rather legendary status they were able to carve out for themselves..and heck, they deserved it.
Vulgar.. was the first Pantera record I was exposed to way back in the day and man it kicked my ass.  The first five tracks alone are ridiculous in their ferocity and have become total metal classics.  ‘Mouth For War’?  ‘A New Level’? ‘Walk’? ‘Fucking Hostile’? ‘This Love’? My goodness, some rock bands don’t have that many kickass songs in their whole career much less as the first 5 tracks on one single record.  (Did any of you dudes out ever ever watch old school ECW? Ya always knew when ‘Walk’ hit that RVD was coming out to kick someone in the face..) I used to love driving around with my discman and it’s car cassette adapter and BLASTING this record. It’s such an aggressive album and always made me feel like such a badass.  I mean, I drove a huge gray Cutlass, I had a chain wallet, and wore XL band shirts and baggy pants..it was hard for me to NOT feel like a badass all the time anyway, but listening to this cd only made me badassier.
Good times.

I don’t really wanna discount the band’s other stuff either, because all of their records (aside from Reinventing the Steel..which kiinda wasn’t that good) are rad too. They always had a sound of their own..with Dimebag’s unique guitar tone and crazy Phil’s ‘I’m gonna beat your ass’ lyrics and attitude..and man I just really liked them. I was lucky enough to see them once, albeit at Ozzfest, but it was super cool anyway.
I bought a Static-X basketball jersey at that Ozzfest I think.  That was 40 bucks I never got back. Oh well. Their first album was good…soooo eff you, naysayer. I digress.
Pantera. Vulgar Display Of Power. A metal classic. It’s a cryin’ shame the band will never be able to make a return to the music world; Dime’s tragic death put any of those possibilities to rest for good (literally I suppose). I’ve never cared for any of the post-Pantera musical projects, so for me, the band has to and will continue to live on through their old stuff and it’s just as awesome today as it was in the peak of the band’s popularity. Who else out there loves them some Pantera?