Pros: Everyone is at their best standard. Consistantly great.
Cons: Not many amazing songs, everything is stuck at the great level
The Bottom Line: It's a good album, it's their best album overall, NOT CONTAINING their best songs. Best:Goddamn Electric,Yesterday Don't Mean Sh*t. Worst:Death Rattle
almighty_shoe's Full Review: Reinventing the Steel [PA] by Pantera
Pantera’s final release, Reinventing the Steel is very different to stuff we’ve heard over the previous 8 years. The album strays from it’s southern touch and makes a more straight ahead metal album, which is nearly straight thrash. The sound does retain a little southern country sounds, generally in the lyrics, but for the main part it’s thrash like pulses, take Hellbound for example near the end.
The album is a huge success in my eyes, Dimebag’s guitars are much cleaner than usual which changes the overall sound of the band, to something a little less obviously Pantera, to something a little more traditional. It’s actually some of his best guitar work here, with great verse riffs, and lots of speed changes.
Also, solos don’t play a large part in this album, which to me is fantastic. As I’m not a huge solo fan. They use one every couple of songs instead of every one, so each time a solo happens if feels special, not just a thing that gets thrown in every song.
Vinnie’s drumming is at near his best, delivering a more hectic and speedy sound than what is usually in a Pantera song, this is probably his best drumming, in the same league as TGSTK. Rex’s bass is good, but doesn’t compete with the stuff he did in FBD. Still, he isn’t drowned out by the mayhem.
Phil’s voice is where I’ve been most impressed on this album. There are no occasions where he moves up to shriek levels of highness and is almost 100% perfectly deep and punishing. Without a doubt his best vocals, maybe not his best lyrics, but vocals are at their best.
RTS is fast, something which hasn’t featured in Pantera albums since CFH, with other albums having one or two fast songs, and the rest a blend of slower to mid paced songs. Here, there are a lot of slower songs, but almost every song speeds up to near thrash speeds at least once.
Something that surprised me more about the use of speed is the fact it’s good. All the time. No over aggressive messy songs like the fast ones off TGSTK. All of it stays tight and enjoyable.
This album isn’t overly Pantera like in the lyric department, this is a fun album, which seems to have been written to be fun for them to play, and in turn is fun to listen to. This of course limits how original they make the sound, but keeps it thoroughly enjoyable.
The record has one thing that really hits me as a surprise from a Pantera CD, consistency. Pantera have been well known for having a bunch of great songs, but always mixing it in with a bunch of sub par tripe. This album has less original standouts, (still standouts mind you, just less dynamic) but there are no bad songs. Yep, not a single song would fit in a bad pile.
One problem with the album is it’s length, it’s a little short, because Pantera don’t do long songs, and 10 Pantera songs is only just over 40 minutes, a little short for a $32 album.
You may have noticed that I haven’t listed any real negatives, that’s because this album has none. There are no bad songs, no member is subpar, there a simply no negatives. The only thing which stops this from being an all time great is the fact that it’s positives aren’t as good as what they can do, definitely a safe album.
Track 1. Hellbound
The album kicks off with a weird little intro, sounding very 80’s metal, which soon goes into some slow verses which have little speed ups with some moments of spoken lyrics, resulting in a interesting sound. The Chorus is probably the closest Anselmo goes to shriek on the whole album. When he howls “Hellbound”. After the second verse the song speeds up with odd slow downs, very interesting and cool sounds, a good song, maybe not the best, but good.
Rating: 8.5/10
Track 2. Goddamn Electric
Goddamn Electric has a fast start and verse, which moves into a cool slower pre, and then a chorus with an awesome sounding chorus, with some more traditional Pantera southern guitars. The song is made to be fun, and with the lyrics that get used in the Pre it shows. The song features one the cleanest solos that Pantera has done sounding much less southern due to it’s more traditional clean sound.
Rating: 10/10
Track 3. Yesterday Don’t Mean Sh**
This one is my personal favourite, this song is one the faster songs with one the best chorus’ they have done, very catchy and bouncy song for the main part. Lyrics are all kinda crap, but still one hell of an awesome song. It also packs one the coolest solos on the album.
Rating: 10/10
Track 4. You’ve Got To Belong To It
The song kicks off with a weird intro, which soon changes into a more traditional Pantera verse. The Pre speeds up a little, which soon turns into a cool catchy chorus, This very much a groove metal song. The slower section at the end of song is a little dull, but flows well into that chorus. The closing to the song is awesome too, with a slight adaptation of the chorus riff, with a little more speed to it.
Rating: 9.5/10
Track 5. Revolution is My Name
This is the first track I heard off the album, and I loved it, when placed after those first four songs though, it loses some of its effect. Firstly, this song is one of Dimebag’s masterpieces. He plays like 5 different songs in this one in this magnificent performance. Lyrics are stupid, as always, but Phil’s vocals pull it off somehow. Overall a cool song which has so much variation that it won’t get old fast.
Rating: 9/10
Track 6. Death Rattle
I can’t like this one, I’ve tried, but I can’t. It’s crazy and fast, with super aggressive vocals that remain under control. It’s even fitted together tightly with no real mismatch of vocals to music. It’s good all round. But there’s something, I can’t pinpoint which makes me dislike this here song.
Rating: 6.5/10
Track 7. We’ll Grind That Axe For A Long Time
Cool title, but the song fails to live up to it’s name. With a dull verse in relation to the rest of the album, but a great chorus near makes it up, with an almost Machine Head “Davidian”-like “We’ll Grind That Axe For A Long Time” scream closing the chorus with little music support. It’s a good song, not a great song, but definitely an enjoyable listen.
Rating: 9/10
Track 8. Up Lift
This one is a very groove based song. With a very un-Pantera like verse which only has drums. One problem on here is the drums. While a nice little beat, it gets super boring after a few spins because it’s through almost the whole song. This is just a good quality groove metal song.
Rating: 8/10
Track 9. It Makes Them Disappear
The last two songs are a little over long, but Pantera always like to beef up the length of they’re last couple of songs to bring up a 40 minute album, because really, this is the only album which has had a lot of quality content. It makes them disappear is a different song as it sets a slower pace to most of the album, but after a non-promising intro the verses start and they’re great. Set at a more relaxed pace, which the band usually uses. The Chorus is promising, but fails to deliver as well as it can because each line doesn’t flow together, despite the fact on their own they sound cool. I’d like to thank another Epinions member for telling me about the edit line in “Get The F**k on down the road” section. This is a great song which fails to be great due to too many imperfections. Also, the solo kind of sucks.
Rating: 8.5/10
Track 10. I’ll Cast A Shadow
The final track, didn’t take long did it. This one cool song, opening with some “fast paced southern groove thrash rock” which they’ve always done so well. The chorus is slower with some of the only real ugly vocals in it. The speed picks up again in the great chorus. With lots of speed changes this song stands out as probably the best closing song they’ve done, mainly because it doesn’t suck. Much like the rest of the album, it doesn’t break new ground, it just hits hard. This is probably the only song which sounds forcefully long. Which is a pity because otherwise it would have been a 10/10.
Rating: 9.5/10
Total = 88.5/100
= 88.5%
= 4 ½ Stars
In my mind this album takes the place at the top of all Pantera albums, for one reason, consistency. I can find more 10/10 songs on any other of the bands albums, but they always come with half an album of crap. So as an album overall, it’s they’re best, and I struggle to find that someone else could disagree (Note that I’ve only heard FBD and TGSTK).
So this is worth buying, maybe not the AU$32 my sister paid for it from a music store, but buy it for anything less, because this album is hard to find. At least in Australia.
Ounce for ounce, decibel for decibel, few bands can even approach the fury that is Pantera. For years they have been unleashing their anger in front o...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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