Pantera
Cowboys From Hell

THE REVIEW

"To beat, to hit" is the Italian translation of the adjective thrash, a term that, when paired with the noun Metal, is more a declaration of intent than anything else. Emerging in the early '80s, this subgenre of heavy metal was the most genuinely angry sound you could find around: a mixture of hardcore punk and classic heavy metal capable of making an entire generation headbang, and it is still the object of veneration and cult today. I won't list the most representative albums of '80s Thrash Metal here because even the stones know them, the only thing I want to dwell on for a minute is the idea of "genuine anger" that this genre emanated and that over the years has been lost: those rhythms, those sometimes acidic and sometimes melancholic vocals, and those guitars that could both make you mosh and make you cry were a mix that had a purely human and real communicative urgency. People screamed because there was no other way to fight their demons; you either beat them or got beaten by them, and listeners could perceive it... Then came the '90s with its load of flannel shirts and Death and Black Metal blasphemies, yet right at the beginning of that strange musical decade, a band released perhaps the last great Thrash Metal album intended in its most classic sense. But let's go in order: those four guys from Arlington, Texas, were already active for quite a while when they released "Cowboys From Hell", a work that managed to bring Pantera, as they were called, into the Olympus of world hard music: a concentrate of tight riffs, angry vocals, and a groove until then unheard of in an album of the genre. A genuine and vital fury, that violently pulses in the vocal cords of a Phil Anselmo more versatile than ever: now delicate and emotional, then suddenly a "halfordian" screamer, and finally furious like a dog in chains. Our guy perfectly withstands the impact of a rhythm section reduced to the bone but still capable of overwhelming everything in its path: Vinnie Paul creating magic with the double bass drum, Rex Brown holding everything up with his precise and thunderous bass, and Dimebag Darrell crafting acid riffs on which he lays solos of rare beauty and incisiveness. It was all true and concrete, no vocal filters, exaggerated triggers, or anything else, just real anger, the kind that flows inside your veins and poisons your blood, well expressed by a "Domination" whose intro can move mountains, a fury that in the end also leads to reflection, to a bitterness that in "Cemetary Gates" becomes the poignant singing of an Anselmo so touching as to be moving: a man searching for answers to his questions to find a path that at that moment seems unwilling to reveal itself. Splendid then the solo by Darrell, a sort of liberating scream in a song that has much the mood of a prayer. We are faced with the gem of the album, a piece that I feel like placing alongside another classic like "Welcome Home Sanitarium" by Metallica, two tracks that even today, years later, make me emotional with every listen. This was the essence of primordial Thrash Metal: violence and melody, fury and reflection, you could run like a madman with Slayer or you could reflect on the notes of the Four Horsemen, a lesson that the Texans had perfectly assimilated, leading them to create poundings like "Primal Concrete Sledge", with that double bass drumming that strafes your soul, or throw you into that estranging and "opiate" nightmare that answers to the name of "Sleep", accompanied by another great solo by the never-too-lamented Darrell. In all this cauldron, one cannot fail to mention the title track, a "Cowboys From Hell" that acts as an overture for everything that will come after it: a mix of groove, accelerations, and sharp and effective refrain: a business card like few others seen, in short, a masterpiece, like the rest of the entire album, a little gem to listen to and listen to...