PANTERA Revisited

[Rushmore]

OK, so I have an old friend staying in my house, and we go back twenty plus years, to the good-old/bad-old punk and metal days. It's impossible to see this guy without doing a fair amount of typically nostalgic yammering i.e. early 80's DC punk scene, goth, insane metal shows, all of the poor, lost girls who needed "affection," whatever.

Anyway, this prompts me to shelve my Mogwai, Mono, Sigur Ros, and Caroline stuff for a few hours, in favor of revisiting Pantera.

Without exception over the years, Pantera holds up.

Marvel at the first few ineffable notes of I'm Broken. That is quality freakin metal. Incredible.

Recoil in terror at the monstrosity of sound that is By Demons Be Driven. Oh my. Oh....my.

Bow down before the masterwork of Floods. If there were a God, He would have sent Dime to play this as a warning to us all. Gorgeous.

But of course, some walking excrement had to go and shoot Dime in the face, and Phil Anselmo isn't going to be worth a damn anyplace other than Pantera, so it is over and it ain't coming back.

But if you haven't listened for a while, you should. So, so great.

I don't know--I guess if just one person goes to the CD tower and pops in The Great Southern Trendkill and says "Holy sh*t, I had forgotten how great this stuff really is," then maybe there was a point to this post.