Cowboys From Hell

About

Pantera had excised nearly all remnants of their hair-metal days when they signed with a major label and released 1990’s <i>Cowboys from Hell</i>. Only the strutting single “Psycho Holiday”—which boasts banshee-scream vocal outbursts from Phil Anselmo, squealing guitar, and crashing chorus hooks—feels like a link to the Texas band’s glammier past. In all other respect, <i>Cowboys from Hell</i> ripped up metal’s existing rulebook and replaced it with something harder, faster, and heavier. That was made clear from the album-opening title track, a ferociou, confrontational tune that doubled as Pantera’s mission statement: They were swaggering, dangerous hell-raisers ready to steamroll the competition. From there, the band melded several prominent inspirations—especially speedy ’80s thrash, lightning-fast hard rock, and pounding groove metal—into something potent and fresh. The bludgeoning proto-death-metal blast “Primal Concrete Sledge” lived up to its name. So did the album’s final song, “The Art of Shredding,” which segued from viciou, Metallica-like grooves to choppy, whiplash-inducing guitar heroic. .

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