Reinventing the Steel

Reinventing The Steel. Pantera’s swan song. The last hurrah for the core four. The end cap for one of the most influential bands in metal history and ironically enough, my favorite Pantera album, without question. Of course the other albums are amazing in their own right, specifically “The Great Southern Trendkill” being my second favorite of the bunch, but there’s just something about this album that hits the hardcore riff spot for me.

I was thirteen years old in 2000 when this album was released. I had just started to get into thrash/heavy metal with the Big 4 and the other east coast and Bay Area thrash bands, so Pantera was clearly within that orbit of heavy bands I was being introduced to. To say it was a very impressionable time period for me musically is an understatement.

Enter Reinventing The Steel, one of the first impressions I had of the band, outside of Cowboys From Hell. I remember constantly jamming this album in my portable CD player that year and being legitimately blown away. The monstrous riffs from Dime, Phil screaming his goddamn head off, Vinny absolutely wrecking his kit and Rex just laying down the solid low end in killer fashion. This album literally has everything I absolutely love about Pantera in fucking spades. What is there not to like about this album? Seriously.

“Hellbound” kicks off the album in maddening fashion with Phil ripping his own lungs out while Dime shreds his trademark “squeals” in full force. It’s an amazing opener that sets the tone for the rest of the “punch-to-the-face” that is this album. What follows is nothing short of Pantera doing what they do best, crushing eardrums in fine form. The vibe this album exudes is akin to making one last final stand on a war torn battlefield, which, unfortunately, was the literal scenario for this group at the time. “Death Rattle”, in particular, brings out some of Dime’s best breakdowns riffs I’ve ever heard, on top of some absolutely strange lyrics by Phil. “Pressure point. Rigor mortis. Induce. Grasp of poison hands.” Big time “what the fuck”, but somehow it works.

Dime’s riffs and squeals on this record are ridiculous, crushingly heavy and fucking flat out badass. He perfected that sound on the record, plus more. Vinny sounds amazing, as always, specifically how he utilizes his ride cymbal to the nth degree. Phil is an absolute psychopath at moments, with his super low drawl that suddenly turns into flat out screams. Rex thunders the low end, as he always did on ever single record he played on. Top notch Pantera firing on all cylinders in the latter part of their career.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room, the mix of this album. It’s bad, I agree with the general consensus about that, but it doesn’t completely destroy the sound like many say it does. I had no frame of reference when I heard this over 20 years ago, but clearly understand how “muddy” and “discombobulated” the original mix truly is, thus why I’ve docked my score by 10% instead of giving it a full 100%. Now, if the official 2020 Terry Date mix was the initial mix upon release, then it would be a different story. Thankfully Terry came in and finally did this album absolute justice when he cleaned everything up and brightened almost every aspect of these powerful songs. I highly suggest listening to his mix instead of the original, it’s the true definitive version of this monstrous album in full form.

At the end of the day, “Reinventing The Steel” is, in my personal opinion, one of Pantera’s best offerings and a definite high water mark for the band. Obviously no one knew at the time that this would be the bands swan song, but they went out as hard and as strong as they could. What still shocks me, to this day, is the absolute unmitigated indifference and sometimes flat out hatred some have for this album. I truly don’t get it, especially with the updated and brilliant mix from Terry Date. Just reading some of the reviews on here is absolutely puzzling. Maybe I’m in the small minority of people who think this album is a beast of a recording. Who knows.

There is one thing I absolutely do know for sure, “Reinventing The Steel” stands strong amongst the other very powerful albums these guys were able crank out in the 90’s. As the now mythical phrase says, Pantera saved metal in the 90’s. A phrase that, in my opinion, still stands the test of time looking back in retrospect.

If only Dime and Vinny were still around, we’d be seeing the core four completely destroy on a reunion tour bringing the hostile domination to the masses. Charlie and Zakk are excellent substitutes though and the only two who could fill in for the brothers, that is absolutely for sure. The music is out there and being heard right now, so that’s all that really matters in the end. Pantera is a legendary band for legendary reasons, on all fronts and I have nothing but the utmost respect for what they have given us.

90/100

Highlights: “Revolution is my Name”, “Hellbound”, “Death Rattle”, “Goddamn Electric” and “Yesterday don’t mean shit”

RIP Dime and Vinny. You guys are sorely missed.

Pantera may have never been popular in the underground necessarily, but it's impossible to overstate how much they dominated the 90s. They were the metal band (besides Metallica of course) that everybody knew, and they released four albums that decade, all massive hits with huge singles that dominated rock radio airwaves (less so with Trendkill but that one makes up for its lack of radio success by being the one Pantera album that Extremely Online Metalloids allow themselves to like), and then just... suddenly they weren't. Reinventing the Steel stands out precisely because it doesn't stand out whatsoever. I was a 90s kid that grew up loving the shit out of Pantera, some of my earliest interactions with other people on the internet come from when I was 12 years old and pretending to be 18 so I could join Metallica and Pantera messageboards on Elektra's website, and even then, barely a year after this album dropped, nobody at all was talking about it anymore. It's a strange bunny fart at the end of an otherwise very successful career that even meathead superfans with Confederate flag tattoos and Big Dog t-shirts forgot about mere months later. I want to revisit the album for the first time since Diablo II was released to see if I can suss out why.

Upon relistening, the first thing I was struck by was how fucking good "Hellbound" is. Seriously, Trendkill is remembered nowadays as the most venomous and unhinged Pantera album by a fairly wide margin and "Hellbound" kicks this swansong off exactly where that classic finished off. It's basically "Sandblasted Skin" part two, and from minute zero it acts as buckshot to the face and amps the adrenaline off the fucking charts. You'd be forgiven for expecting the spiritual successor to "Strength Beyond Strength" judging by its immediate intensity and short runtime to kick off the album, but... you'd be wrong.

As good as "Hellbound" is, it also immediately signals a huge problem with Reinventing the Steel. "Strength Beyond Strength" is meticulously structured in three parts, starting off fast and furious, downshifting into a brutally sludgy slow part in the middle, and building to a fantastically exciting climax that showers you in vitriol. It's by no means novel or unique but it knew what it was doing and executed it very well. "Hellbound" on the other hand just... kinda ends. It goes verse-chorus-verse-chorus and then it just stops and moves on to the next song. It's really jarring because Pantera is known for simplistic groovy riffs and an overall aura of lunkhead jocks headbanging on two notes, but apart from a few flukey bad songs they were never really lazy. This sounds like they simply couldn't be fucking bothered to finish writing this song but felt like it had potential to be a good opener when they started writing it so they just went down with that ship.

The rest of the album suffers from this same problem but in varying ways. Some songs sound like they're just unfinished (like "Hellbound", "Death Rattle", and "We'll Grind that Axe for a Long Time") while others sound like they weren't workshopped at all and just recorded the first riff Dimebag could think of with no tweaking or variation across repeats (like "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit", "Uplift", and "You've Got to Belong to It"). Dime was always good at solos and shit at riffs, but he's never been shitter at riffs than on tracks like those. Reinventing the Steel winds up being surprisingly difficult to talk about simply because so little actually happens in it. It very much stinks of a band that can't stand to be in the same room together and just wants to get recording over with. It's pretty telling that this is a good ten minutes shorter than anything else from their groove era. You'd think this would be a good thing since there's always been a filler track or two and it's hard to groove for a solid hour without getting bored, but really it's a result of the band clearly wanting to just put this behind them and get out as fast as possible.

It's impossible to truly take this album in a vacuum because the behind the scenes drama shines through so effortlessly. It's well known that tensions within the band had been running extremely high for a long while by this point, with the Phil Anselmo being a strung out belligerent junkie and the Abbott brothers wanting nothing more than to cut bait and leave him out in the cold. If the few paragraphs of Rex Brown's autobiography that I found previewed on Google can be believed, the brothers themselves were also just genuinely unintelligent meatheads, with Vinnie being a loudmouth bully and Dime being a perpetually confused dimwit who couldn't handle his money if it was glued to his hands. I get the feeling that three of the four guys (excepting Dime, who by all accounts was a very nice guy who just wasn't too bright) were giant assholes who couldn't stand each other anymore. This tension goes as far back as Trendkill, but intra-band adversity has resulted in artistic brilliance before, likely the most famous being Fleetwood Mac's Rumors but even within the realm of metal you've got Painkiller or Persistence of Time being birthed from similar circumstances. The difference seems to be that after that tortured work of stressed out genius, there's either a notable member parting ways or the band just breaks up. Pantera made the critical mistake of trying to do this twice, because Reinventing the Steel shows what happens when the album in question acts as neither a catharsis nor an exit door for unhappy members, and they try to just "stay together for the kids", as it were. Trendkill was dark and violent and explosive, Steel is just a paycheck that nobody really wants to bother with anymore.

As a result, this album sounds exactly like what you'd expect given that knowledge. The band is on the verge of total collapse, the trademark great album that can sometimes happen when these conditions are met had already happened, nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to really try. Vinnie shines on "Hellbound" and one weird off-kilter bit in the bridge on "Uplift" but otherwise he's just going through the motions, Dimebag had precisely two standout riffs under the solo on "Death Rattle" and the intro to "I'll Cast a Shadow" (the former being most well known nowadays for being featured in an early episode of Spongebob Squarepants, which might seem bizarre but it's honestly the best riff on the album by a canyonesque margin so whoever chose to include that riff is a genius) and (for the first time) zero exciting solos, Phil's vocals flip flop between strained and uninterested, none of the songwriting has that tightened polish that their earlier albums had, everything is just a dull simulacra of what Pantera used to be. "Revolution is My Name" stands as one of the only enduring tracks from this release despite not being particularly good, and I think it's because it's the most Pantera-ish song out of all ten tracks. Even though it's pretty boring on the whole and the squealy bit in the intro is obnoxious, it at least sounds like a fully thought out song with a catchy chorus that wouldn't have sounded out of place as a weaker song on Vulgar Display of Power (or alternatively, a filler song on a late-era Lamb of God album). Unfortunately most of the album is just lazy and uninteresting. "You've Got to Belong to It" and "Uplift" are some of the worst tracks Pantera ever laid to tape, "Goddamn Electric" and "It Makes Them Disappear" might as well not exist for all the adrenaline they fail to produce, "Hellbound" is promising but clearly unfinished, et cetera forever. I know it's uncool for underground metalheads to like Pantera, but I think it's telling that the underground hate is usually directed at Vulgar Display of Power or Far Beyond Driven while nobody can muster up enough bile to even acknowledge Reinventing the Steel. Pantera was divisive, but they were unmistakable and everybody has a hot take about their early 90s era. By 2000, they were, for the first time since their oft-forgotten glam era, completely skippable.

We all know how this story ends. It took three years after release, but Pantera finally split for good after this album, with Phil and Rex focusing on Down full time while Vinnie and Dimebag formed Damageplan. Any future fantasies of a reunion were dashed completely when Dimebag was tragically murdered onstage in 2004, and their legacy was firmly cemented for better and worse. Reinventing the Steel is honestly just sad. It didn't need to be released and it certainly shouldn't have been the band's swansong. It's a pitiful non-album with painfully few bright spots but is mostly droning and ugly. Like them or not, Pantera was an inescapable force of nature in the 90s, and the storm ended with nothing more than a little spittle before subsiding forever, and it turns out the old adage about it being better to burn out than fade away is entirely true.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Reinventing the Steel is the sound of Pantera trying to get one more album out before inter-member pressure, side-bands, as well as drugs and alcohol would inevitably destroy the band. Tensions were at an all-time high and the years since Trendkill were hard on Pantera. Still, it seems like they had just enough energy to pull together one more album. Reinventing the Steel is the album that shows what happens when the hardships that powered Trendkill go on for far too long and end up dragging the band down. There is good material on here, but it's in much sparser quantities than in earlier releases. The classic groove of Pantera is still here, but it comes off as struggling and tired, as though the band meant for this to be the end of their "official canon" before they all called quits.

Every musical idea on this album comes off as much simpler and having less passion than before. Fewer of the songs stick out prominently and many feel like recycled or second hand ideas from previous albums. That's not to say they sound bad, they just sound simple and unexciting. There are songs on here that do come off as a genuine work of effort. "HellBound" for example, is great at revving you up for the rest of the album with its chunky bass lines and the pounding lead guitar barrage; and it feels much bigger than it is thanks to the strong buildup over its 2 minute and 40 second running time. "Revolution is my Name" is another song with imposing riffs that tower over anyone listening and a catchy chorus that draws people together in head-banging unison. It borrows from Down's style of sludge and that adds even more density to the song. Most of the other songs here are a mixed bag of "boring and tired" like "You've got to belong to it", and "decent but forgettable" songs like "Death Rattle" which many of us only remember since it was featured in a SpongeBob episode. Most of these songs use an idea that only gets half-realized, plodded out, and while it sounds okay while it's there, it leaves no impression. There's a decent groove kudos to Dimebag, but not much else in the way of catchiness or lasting impact. Songs like "Death Rattle" and others in the middle of the album feel like a series of "Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am" situations since they feel shorter than they really are and don't build to anything. The complexity of Trendkill has been dialed back extremely far and most of this album suffers for it.

There is one decent quality to Reinventing the Steel and that is the leftover sludge sounds from Trendkill. This leads to some interesting ideas that are better fleshed out towards the end of the album. Sure, "Revolution is my Name" has a lot of debt to the sludge style and that adds an air of menace to the song, but it doesn't go full in towards sludge like "It Makes Them Disappear" and "I'll Cast a Shadow" which go for a murky, hellish timbre. These songs have a deathly atmosphere about them as the slow, low, and foreboding riffs spell out the nearing approach of this album's end, much like the nearing approach of the band's end, like death's hand creeping slowly towards you. While they still sound rather simple, it works with a sludgier tone, and they were pulled off fairly well. It doesn't save the rest of the album, but it makes for a chilling final chapter.

While the magic isn't lost on this album, you can certainly feel it slipping away. The music here was simpler, less emotive, less passionate, and more tired. You can tell that Pantera was at their breaking point when Reinventing the Steel, because everything sounds like Pantera, it just sounds less engaging. As I observed before, there are choice cuts on here, but the overall album has less to offer than the other "canon" Pantera releases. While the continuation of some of Trendkill's sludge-based ideas are welcome, and give the ending songs a satisfying "impending doom" vibe, most of the songs on this album just feel like something that was written out just to fill space. This is the weakest of the “canon" Pantera albums. It's still decent, but it seems like the band didn't give it their all here since they couldn't. We're talking about a band that was suffering more and more from interpersonal tension, fighting, and drug abuse as time went on, wearing down Pantera, and wearing down this album. Perhaps Reinventing the Steel is worth a recommendation if you have all the other "canon" Pantera albums and you just want a little more, but even then, this album still feels weaker and less iconic than any of the others going all the way back to Cowboys. It sounds okay, but it's just that, okay.

Reinventing the Steel is definitely an odd duck in Pantera's catalogue. Not for any novel reason in the way their early glam/heavy metal output is, or any positive reason at all. No, this is mainly notable mainly for how not notable it is, in every sense. Here we have one of the biggest, most iconic and inescapable metal bands of the 1990s, who had put out four genre-defining albums that all sold over 1,000,000 copies, come back after four years with a new album (the longest break between studio albums they ever took), and it's pretty much a dud. Excluding their glam days this is by a long shot their worst release (and even throwing in their '80s work this would lose to everything except Metal Magic, which honestly is still a more respectable effort in spirit if not in practice), despite having come hot off the heels of their finest work to date and the band having had such an amazing run up to this point. Not only is this a maddeningly disappointing work, it's the only 'official' album they ever put out that never went platinum, and just in general it's the forgotten album of this leg of their career - again, pretty remarkable for what was generally a band that grabbed your attention whether you liked it or not, because here for the first time in over a decade they're skippable. This all said, given the circumstances this album was born out of, what's going on here makes so much more sense to the point it's impossible to avoid once you see it - once again for them, art imitates life.

If this album could be summed up in three words, they would be 'running on fumes'. Other words would include 'going through the motions', 'tired' and 'a rushed job to collect a paycheque.' Phrases like that describe literally everything about this album, starting with its basic sound. To be clear, this isn't some horrific misfire of a release, like they tried to ape the nu metal of the day - no, pretty much from start to finish this sure is a Pantera album. And that's all it ever tries to be, which is again, odd for the band. For the first time in their 'official' career they didn't come through with any new ideas, they didn't develop their sound in any way, and as a result on a sonic level this album doesn't have nearly as much of an identity beyond 'a Pantera album'. I wouldn't exactly call it a generic groove metal album, as it is still definitely them as opposed one of their many faceless imitators, but it is a generic Pantera album for sure. Another way of putting it is to say if Trendkill was the sound of the band imploding, then this is the sound of the band's charred remains from the blast site (fitting given the cover) and we're now getting those burnt remains presented to us as a finished product. There's absolutely traces of the band's previous three albums here - their trademark hard-as-iron grooves, some southern sludginess and melody, some thrash influence, some big old chugs - but it's all a less vibrant and interesting version of those sounds they did better years before.

Dimebag clearly did not put forth his best material for this album, and it shows, because there's shockingly few memorable riffs on this album when generally the band were very good at doing a lot with a little and choosing some great material to lay to tape. His soloing here doesn't stand out nearly as much either, which is again a shocker given his past work (especially on Trendkill) and it doesn't even sound as if he's playing with all that much conviction either, because this music lacks the punch basically all of their past material had. Rex fulfils his structural role well enough, meanwhile Vinnie has few standout moments across this album ('Hellbound', 'I'll Cast A Shadow', and a moment during the bridge of 'Uplift', but that's it) - he keeps time and nothing more. I know for groove metal that's usually enough, but he would always go above and beyond (which in general is a big part of what separated Pantera from their imitators) by spicing it up and at least playing with some energy and force, but here he definitely does not. Most shockingly of all even Phil, whose vocals have always been one of the most remarkable and inescapable things about every Pantera album he's featured on, turns in his most disinterested and least intense performance of any Pantera album here. He's still operating in that throaty shout he employed on Trendkill, with some gritty singing (no cleans obviously, that'd be too much variety) and the odd foray into screaming, though far less often than before of course, and critically with far less conviction than before. By no means does he sound horrible (he does sound strained at times though) but absolutely not as commanding as he once was.

Now, half-hearted performances and less-than-stellar material being employed is one thing, but that could make for a passably solid album, one hardcore fans would call underrated down the road, were the songs built properly. Whilst there have been defences of this album, it's rare to see it inspire any real passion and given the material here, that's deserved. The issue here is that the songwriting itself is pretty flavourless as well, resulting in an album of songs that are mainly C grade. I know Pantera were a band to ride one riff for a while but what they rode was almost always a good, memorable riff and they did so with so much energy and conviction that it was infectious. Here, they just flatly repeat one riff over and over and generally it sounds like a first draft riff worked into a song that clearly needed more work. Doing this for one or two tracks would be one thing but it literally describes 60% of this album - tracks 2 to 4 and 6 to 8. These do vary in quality a little bit of course, with 'Yesterday Don't Mean Shit' and 'Death Rattle' being the best just for being faster and having more energy, and 'Goddamn Electric' and 'We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time' being the worst for just dragging on and on, riding the most boring riffs Pantera would ever put on an album; the latter is actually my least favourite official Pantera album track (and I'm someone that defends 'Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills' so that is saying something.) 'You've Got to Belong to It' and 'Uplift' meanwhile sort of work because the riffs are so absurdly simple they almost wrap back round to being good, but the songs they're packed into are too redundant and average to make the most of that.

What really saves this album from the dumps are the other four tracks. 'Hellbound' is a fan favourite because it has the venom, the intensity, the riffs and drumming, just everything you want from a Pantera track, sounding like something that could have been on the previous album. The main issue with it is that it's plagued by the same songwriting issues everything else here is - it's genuinely too short and still isn't written amazingly, sort of ending before it could flesh itself out, which leaves it as a good but not great song. 'Revolution Is My Name' isn't incredible but it actually has change-ups, a relatively strong chorus and somewhat stronger riffs. It sounds like the most fleshed-out and laboured over track here, and it's no surprise this was the lead single for the album. 'It Makes Them Disappear', despite its length, is something of a big, slow foreboding crusher with memorable leads, stronger riffs and a better, more compelling vocal performance out of Phil, sung and shouted. 'I'll Cast A Shadow' is a fitting closer given this is their swansong and whilst the ending does drag on for too long, the riffs and drumming go a little harder and on an emotional level it feels like the most sincere and passionate song on the album - certainly more than 'We'll Grind That Axe...' which given the band would fold not long after this, seems like an odd place to write from lyrically.

As stated earlier, Pantera albums tend to imitate life and that's no different here. This album has 'rush job' and the like written all over it, and it should not be surprising that the band were totally done with one another by this point, could not stand to be in the same room and just wanted to get this over and done with. That's why the performances here lack intensity and generally aren't all that special, it's why the songs came out in this rushed state and there's so much less heat on the album in general. It's why the cover art to this is dreadful - very Pantera still, but it just looks terrible especially with the censored bottle of booze. It's why this album has the worst production of any of Pantera's major label efforts - this is the only time Terry Date was not on the boards, and it shows. It doesn't sound totally incompetently produced, it just sounds cheap, low rent, dry, lacking in punch, and in general nothing from the mix really jumps out at you; which is part of why the performances come off so much milder here. It's botched enough that they got Terry to remix this album for its 20th anniversary and whilst it is louder than his work on their '90s albums, the overall sound is more in line with how it would have turned out if the album wasn't rushed out of the door - it actually sounds punchy, vibrant, heavy and clear. It's also why this is only 44 minutes long; you'd think that'd be a good thing because it makes for a trimmer track list but the fact fans had to wait twice as long as usual for less content is a much bigger tell of what drove the creative process here.

Honestly, I think one of the most remarkable things about this album is that it's a rare case of what happens when we get the amazing album made due to tensions in the band, but instead of someone leaving or the band fracturing they try to stick together and make another album. Instead of an intense, incredible work like Trendkill, you instead get an album where no one really wants to try all that hard and just call it a day. Whilst little here is bad, there's not much here that's good and nothing that's truly great. 4 solid to good songs, 6 songs that range from 'barely passable' to 'quite bad'; that's by far the lowest hit rate they'd ever have, and whilst this isn't an excruciating listen it absolutely does feel like a filler album that wastes your time at many points (it actually manages to feel longer than their past efforts despite being a good 10 - 15 minutes shorter.) Really, I don't think it has much reason to exist, they would have been better off splintering after their last album and ending on a high note. How much you enjoy this really comes down to how big a fan of Pantera's style you are, and for me personally I don't enjoy most groove metal, but I do really like Pantera's classic albums. What made them special is their attitude, their energy, the quality of their material, all of which was several cuts above the rest of the pack. This has traces of that magic so it is still above some (but definitely not all) of the pack, but even then - only by a few inches, as opposed to several leagues. Listen to it once, find the songs you actually like (if any), and ignore the rest.

This is probably as bad as Pantera would have ever become had it not been their last album. The most unfortunate part is how Ill fated it was, everything that made them good or even tolerable is lost. Skill wise, writing wise and as far as how it blends together, it is just bad on all sides.

I honestly don't get how this band gets the praise that they do. They say this band saved metal in the early 90s but ignored oh... I don't know... Sepultura, Slayer, Megadeth, Dio, the blossoming death metal scene etc. who were all pumping out well received albums at that point as well. Fast forward to the release of this album. Dio is still pushing his hardest to keep the scene going, Megadeth returns to their thrash roots, death metal and black metal have both reached the global market, Iron Maiden welcomes back Bruce Dickinson. Point being made that Pantera are nowhere near the saviors of metal that their fans claim they are. While were talking about saving metal, isn't this the same band that inspired groove metal, nu-metal and metalcore, some of the most hated subgenres you'll find.

What else doesn't live up to its hype? Dimebag Darrel and his playing. He's always had a style that relied on repetitive rhythmics and screeches but he really out does himself here. All that progress made on the last two albums is gone. These are some of the worst riffs he would ever write. They aren't melodic by any means, no technicality at all, overly repetitious, and not catchy in any way (plus there are a couple one fret riffs to be found here as well). Besides being present and being heavy they don't really do much. They might drive the songs forward, but even that seems like a stretch. What could have caused this, band issues, laziness, freshly out of ideas? Whatever it was Dimebag just didn't provide much passable work here; it is beyond boring, it is straight up bad. How about his screeches? Yeah, he relies on those very heavily now but unfortunately screeching is never solid enough to save a performance, add to this that some of these are just terribly placed and the guitar work just winds up as a total mess. Some how despite this all he still has some good solos up his sleeves (Yesterday Don't Mean Sh*t).

It would seem smoking and screaming have now caught up with Phil. His range has gone down the toilet and the general sound of his voice has become unpleasant. Once again he tries to pin you down with that tough guy attitude but even this seems to push the boundaries of his new range. His screams have become a high point but these also aren't as great as they once were. Plus it's overly vulgar, this kind of language is nothing new to Pantera, but good lord, take out all the swearing and you come to find out most of the lyrics seriously lack depth and thought of any type, even the overly manly themes seem poetic and legendary in comparison.

The rhythm department also seems to be running out of ideas, all the drumming is either stuff I swear I've heard on previous records or it is an all speed (with nothing) else attempt to pound his way into the spotlight. The best part about the bass before was that it was always perfectly matched with the guitar (had this still been the case it would have helped both performances) but alas no more. He comes here to round out the sound and awkwardly try to work his way in with the rest of them, he accomplishes this just barely and often slips up. In fact the tight coordinated and well put together group known as Pantera has fallen into full disarray, they had great chemistry and worked with each other perfectly at one point. Now they sound so amateurish in how they try to come together.

Now, I've been listening to Pantera for nearly 10 years, and I'm quite familiar with how this band has changed over the years, mainly because of Phil's almost unbelievable personality and almost fanatical egocentrism. This album is actually quite a good record, far better than what Slayer or Metallica have been doing in the twilight of their careers. However, it is far from what I expected after a solid release like Trendkill 4 years earlier.

First of all, Dimebag Darrell is probably one of the greatest metal riffers in history, he isn't a virtuoso or mad artistic genius, but he can write heavy metal. On each of the preceding records, he always had a kickass riff here or there, in almost every song (even on Far Beyond Driven). However, there are a handful of songs on this already short album that actually have good riffs. "Revolution is My Name" is perhaps the only real 'Dimebag' song on this record, because it revolves around an unbelievably kickass riff and a well written solo. Its probably his best song, at least for me, but unfortunately, thats all there is to this album. There are a few catchy riffs here and there, but nothing quite like most Pantera fans would probably expect. Additionally, it is worth noting that besides the aforementioned song, there isn't a single decent solo on this record. I'm amazed at how Dimebag managed to forget about the solos, considering he's written some classic solos in the past. What ever happened to the guitar player who wrote "Hollow", "Drag The Waters", "Cemetery Gates", "This Love", "10's" and "Floods"? Disappeared: signature Dimebag is completely absent from here, which is the biggest letdown in the album.

My biggest problem with this record how is redundant, reductionist and flat out stupid some of the lyrics are. The lyrics to a songs like "Uplift", "It Makes Them Disappear", "You've Got To Belong To It" and "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" sound like Phil Anselmo just ran out of brain cells and wrote a bunch of macho man lines to sound tough, it's drunken heavy metal on steroids - he used to be able to sing too, but on this record he grunts his way through several songs, an abomination really and one of the main reasons this record just doesn't resonate, the complete absence of any lyric with meaning. Again, a few songs are actually well sung, but besides that, its his worst performance on probably any heavy metal record.

Now, the album gets a good rating because overall, "I'll Cast A Shadow", "You've Got To Belong To It", "Revolution Is My Name", "Hellbound", "It Makes Them Disappear", "Death Rattle", "We'll Grind That Axe For a Long Time" and even "Goddamn Electric" are great songs, while "You've Got To Belong To It" is somewhat decent, its nothing special. Besides that, this album really doesn't offer anything more than a couple of classics, a few decent heavy metal songs and a couple of fillers which serve no real purpose. Now, the songs are well written and heavy as can be, but the ingenuity of Dimebag and the actual singing of Phil Anselmo are just completely lacking here.

However, I'm obliged to give props to Vinnie, he can produce quite well and is still a beast of a drummer. Unlike other big time heavy metal drummers, Vinnie is always trying to inject some groove and creativity into every song, and accomplishes quite convincingly. He's an unbelievably good drummer who's talent lies in how he's able to complement each and every song rather than just play along (ala Lars Ulrich), play fast (Dave Lombardo) or try to outshine the band. He's the one musician on this record who seems to still have his shit together and always throws in drum lines that go against 'conventional' heavy metal drumming.

To conclude, this is a heavy record, true to Pantera and true to heavy metal, parts of it are absolutely incredible, these guys can still write some of the heaviest music on the planet without descending into jibberish or obfuscated nonsense. Any heavy metal fan will enjoy this record, but as a Pantera fan, there are definitely things lacking here.

In my opinion, the only time Pantera really "reinvented" anything was themselves c. 1989, before the mammoth release of "Cowboys from Hell" the following year. That's not to say that this album, their "fifth" and final album, is all that bad. In looking at Pantera, whether you love em, hate em or don't mind em, you can easily define each of their albums post-Cowboys From Hell.

"Power Metal" (1988), their first with Phil Anselmo and their last "glam" record, began to show traces of their new trajectory. "Cowboys from Hell" was heavy, thrashy, and still fundamentally "heavy metal" at heart. "Vulgar Display" expanded on the band's newfound heaviness and yielded some pretty good songs. Generally by now we can assume that Pantera got heavier with each album.

Now, "Reinventing the Steel" is not perfect, and you cannot blame this entirely on musicianship. Pantera circa turn of the millennia were about to explode, not like in 1990, there was tension. This album was likely recorded with a lot of tension between the band, least of all the Abbott brothers and Phil. The album is not lacking by any means, though there aren't any "Cemetery Gates" or "I'm Broken"s on here.

Two songs that really stand out for me personally are "Revolution Is My Name" and "Goddamn Electric". Now these songs are pure unabashed Pantera, I feel a culmination of their work. Some people may disregard this album and the band around the year 2000, and opinions are warranted, and understandable, but "Reinventing" is not all bad, just not all good either.

Aside from those two songs, the rest don't really stand out, not that the musicianship is bad at all, I mean Dimebag's on top form, but it just as if you can sort of feel the internal tension. Although "We'll Grind That Axe For A Longtime" is another decent track, and sort of ironically ominous. If Phil had stayed friends with Dimebag and Vinnie a tragedy in the metal world could have been avoided, and maybe we'd still see Pantera, happy and grindin' on today, but for now we have this album, not their best, but hey not the worst piece of shit they could conjure.

Pros:
- Classic Pantera
- Dimebag at work
- A few standout songs

Cons:
- Feel the tension
- Not all standout
- Not their finest either

Reinventing the Steel is an album plagued by egocentrism.

Right off the bat, the album cover really fucking sucks. With this amateurish artwork, the band is trying hard to prove that they are the wildest, “real-deal” heavy metal dudes out there. Typical Pantera.

Then you might think, it's all about the music itself and the artwork shouldn't matter. Unfortunately, the music is just as unimpressive. First of all, Phil Anselmo can still scream like a demon for sure, but lyrically this album ranks among the worst of Pantera records. EVERY goddamn track, it seems, is about the band and how much of a rebel they are. Arrogant bravado gets really old after 44 minutes of it.

But it's not just Phil that's the egocentric culprit here, Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul are equally guilty of resting on their laurels too. As the primary composers for the band, the Abbott brothers had plenty of time since the last album to write and record – almost four years of dormancy with little touring to do because Phil was busy with other projects. Regrettably though, we, the fans, are treated with one-trick pony of loud grooves after another from start to finish. Its general lack of dynamics in favor of nonstop pummeling is akin to Far Beyond Driven, only this time it's less threatening, and definitely more uninventive than FBD.

Some of the songs even sound like a rehash of older Pantera songs too. “Death Rattle” is essentially a second-rate “Suicide Note Pt. II”, even recycling that rattlesnake theme from the previous artwork (it's also laughable that Spongebob sampled this song). Then there is “It Makes Them Disappear,” which attempts to be Reinventing the Steel's “Cemetary Gates” or “Floods.” Sadly, it not only lacks the sense of emotional climax and epic swagger, it is supplemented with a rather unmemorable solo, which is rare feat for Dimebag.

This time, Dime and Vinnie also produced the record. This also meant that Dime and Vinnie basically hogs the attention of the listeners, and Rex Brown gets only one real spotlight (on “It Makes Them Disappear”), and that's after the first 8 tracks are already over. For the vast majority of the record, he's buried in the background like Jason Newsted on Metallica albums. I suppose that's expected when the record is produced by two guys who ridicules Rex as being the “free meal-deal” and don't recognize his talent and contributions to the band.

To be fair, I still enjoy Reinventing the Steel a little. This album still kicks more ass than a lot of mainstream metal records out there, and you still get that superb performance from each band members, especially Dimebag. Some tracks are kinda cool, like “Revolution is My Name,” which features the best and plentiful Dimebag solo of the record. Reinventing the Steel IS listenable really, but this is Pantera we're talking about. At the end of the day, solid performance isn't good enough for a band like Pantera if it's not backed by good show of creativity.

Ultimately, Pantera made a caricature of themselves with this one. Reinventing the Steel sure has the attitude, instrumental prowess, and plenty of heaviness, but lacks a sense of purpose. I hate to sound hyperbolic, but Reinventing the Steel sounds to me like Pantera's best days were already over – or specifically, Dimebag's most creative days were over. I wish as much as anyone else that Dimebag didn't is still alive, but listening to Reinventing the Steel, I get the feeling it's probably for the best that Pantera no longer exists.

Considering their capable career during the 1990's, not to mention the struggling on the local circuit for seven years, its no surprise "Reinventing the Steel" turns off a good deal of fans. Even during my years when I was most enthralled by this band, my approach to this album was always lukewarm. Its not so much that there isn't anything worthwhile on this album, but rather that it contains some great songs surrounded by forgettable groove. This comes as unusual in the case of "Reinventing the Steel" because both "Vulgar Display" and "Far Beyond Driven" are the exact same story, yet both of those are always heralded as some kind of 90's classics.

The key issue here is that the better songs on this album are actually quite good, but in contrast the other songs are that much worse and/or boring. The fact that the sound quality of this album is about as low grade as Pantera ever got in their later career doesn't help things, with the guitars becoming somewhat annoying at times. The enjoyable crunch they had at one time is replaced by a hit or miss syndrome that sometimes listen well and other times can come to the point of grating you to press the skip button. Confound this with an obvious step down in songwriting on almost all fronts and you have a pretty lackluster way to end this band's career.

The album itself, in terms of song quality, is a mixed bag. You have some great songs, some decent songs and then some unbearable songs. The great songs are obviously the ones that cause the listener to remember why he enjoys Pantera (or if you never did, remind you of why you dislike them.) This includes the opener in "Hellbound," which I'd say is one of the best songs this band ever did. Its short and to the point, not a lot of needless repetition or meandering for five to six minutes. The song even has a sense of build-up to a climactic ending and is fairly memorable, not to mention it just works on all fronts. "Revolution Is My Name" is next, again a worthy mention in the context of Pantera's career. Its a song that has ambition, more so than the average mid-tempo groover that Pantera is known for. It takes my pick as the best song on this album, and challenges the better moments from earlier in their career. "It Makes Them Disappear" and "I'll Cast A Shadow" are longer numbers, but both work equally well although they are a bit short in terms of quality to match up with "Hellbound" and "Revolution Is My Name." The only real complaint from these two is that "I'll Cast A Shadow" seems to refuse to end, dragging on about a half minute too long.

The decent songs begin with "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit," which is a fairly enjoyable song. This one in particular seems to showcase a step down in Anselmo's lyrical writings, which were a highlight for me on "The Great Southern Trendkill." While I agree with the song's message, its like he couldn't come up with anything better than "on the fly" lyrics to these songs. "Death Rattle" is another short number and decent enough, but nothing special. "Uplift" is more of the same, though its lyrics get a bit comical and I imagine that isn't the intention the band was going for.

The remaining three should have been cut entirely, for they serve little more than reasoning to press the skip button and to dock points off the album as a whole. "Goddamn Electric" is utterly boring, not to mention more of the same with Anselmo's lackluster writings here. "You've Got to Belong to It" could have been a decent tune but that incessant guitar effect is absolutely annoying as hell and kills the song completely. "We'll Grind that Axe for a Long Time" is positive only in that its shorter, but completely useless and devoid of ideas. Considering this band folded just a couple of years after this album was released, the whole concept of the song seems more contradictory than anything else.

The fact that "Reinventing the Steel" had potential to be a decent end for this band only makes it that much harder to really listen to it as a whole. Had about half of these songs gotten the boot things would have been much better. Pantera should have released an EP with "Hellbound," "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit," "Revolution is My Name," "It Makes Them Disappear," and "I'll Cast a Shadow," this would have been a more enjoyable listen and would have scored a 78%. It would have been called a step down from "Trendkill" in almost every way but a fairly solid way to end the band's career not to mention being a lot easier to listen to as a whole instead of getting your finger ready for the skip button on every other track. That being said, this was not a good way to end things for this group, and on the whole, is about even with "Far Beyond Driven" as the worst of the band's "main" career. I picked this up second hand many years ago for $5, which is perfect because I got five songs worth a damn and I cannot see why anyone should go much higher.

Sad beans it is, that Pantera had to end on a really disappointing note, especially considering their last output, the godly Trendkill. Sadder still, that Phil and the rest of the boys couldn't get it together for one more and had to end the band on the note that it did. And, probably the saddest of all, was the horror that was Damageplan and the tragic event that transpired. Yup, if Pantera was still a band, Dimebag would still be alive, Down would still just be a side project, Dammitplan would never have existed, and Pantera would probably be playing possibly some death/thrash hybrid. Hey, I can dream right? I can't? Oh bah.

Enough with the bellyaching, on to "Reinventing the Steel". If you're hoping for "Trendkill Pt II", you'll be disappointed. If you're hoping for more songs in the vein of "Walk", then you should consider a career around downed power lines and slippery wet surfaces. Yeah, it bears little resemblance to the previous offering and shares more in common with "Far Beyond Driven" minus all the lame-ass groove. Mind you, the groove is still here, just not facefucking you nonstop ("Vulgar"),as much as it is punching you in the shoulder every 30 seconds to one minute. The riffs....not many of them stick out and dickslap you like the ones from "Cowboys From Hell" did, and a good number of them are boring and generic groove based riffs. The drumming is actually not bad, Vinnie gives a good if unspectacular performance. Rex's bass is clear as always, though nothing eye-popping is on display, he's there and audible. As for the vocals....well Phil's vocals seem to be love it or hate it for the vast majority. Personally, I have no problem with them, though I do miss his higher pitched singing a la "Shattered" but that hasn't been seen in years so no surprise that there is no highs to be found. He just sticks with what he's done since "Far Beyond Driven", that being his lower growls.

The songwriting is also weaker than Trendkill. No surprises like "Suicide Note Part 1" to change the flow. Aye, most of the songs are midpaced and adhere to the "verse, chorus" structure whilst clocking in between three to five minutes in length. But not all the tracks on hand are losers. Opener "Hellbound" contains an explosive (by this album's standard) chorus and the bridge near the end isn't too bad. It's also the shortest track. "Revolution is my Name", to my ears, is not bad for being a single, certainly it's assfuckloads better than the other singles released for radio back in 2000 (i.e. Limp Dicklick, StinkinPark) and for that, it's win, besides the intro riff, which I never cared for. "Death Rattle" is probably the fastest song on the album, and the only one that could have fit on "Trendkill". The solo is almost pure noise but it fits the song well so no complaints. "We'll Grind That Axe For a Long Time" is filled with groove but I can go without skipping it most of the time. Don't know why, but it sorta kinda works. Finally, "Uplift" has a fun chorus riff and some nice drumming. The rest of the songs aren't horrible piles of banal groovefuck like a certain song of Pantera's that happens to rhyme with "cock", but they're nothing special either. The only one I tend to skip over alot is the closing "I'll Cast a Shadow". It just never clicked with me.

All told, Pantera's last studio output would prove to be a disappointing end to one of metal's most well known bands. Aye, it's best to just put this on and pretend that Damageplan and HellYeah never existed. If you're unsure whether to buy or not, download "Revolution" and if you dig that, chances are you shouldn't have too many complaints with this.

This album fucking sucks.

I really wish I could just write that, submit it and have it accepted. No, instead of bluntly bashing this album, I'm going to have to try to eloquently explain why I hate this album and why you should not listen to it.

Now, I'm a reasonable man. I give every album I own a fair shake. If I don't like it at first, I'll give it another shot later. Usually they grow on me after some time. I've been working on Reinventing the Steel for five grueling years and I hate it more and more with time.

In fact, I hate it so much, I'm going to complain about something completely irrelevant about the album: The album cover. Seriously? A dude in boxers jumping through fire with a blurred-out bottle? It tends to remind me of that part in Full Metal Jacket where the drill instructor discusses Texas' cheif exports. This is PANTERA. I would've expected something more badass.

Reinventing the Steel is Pantera's fifth post-glam/half-thrash/groove/whatever-the-fuck-you-wanna-call-it album. After Vulgar Display of Power, it became abundantly clear that Pantera was running out of ideas. Reinventing the Steel is the point where the band apparently ran COMPLETELY out of ideas.

I once read an interview with Dimebag Darrel about this album and he said something to the point of "its got ten songs because we trimmed off all the fat". Great. I can't even fucking imagine how terrible the shafted songs were after listening to boring, uninspired track after boring, uninspired track here.

Its a shame, too. Pantera were always top notch musicians.

And as great of a guitarist as he may have been, Dimebag's performance here is utter shit. The riffs are dull and forgettable. In fact, I was listening to the album five minutes ago and I still can't remember one. The guitar tone is awful as well. It sounds they were recorded underwater.

Vinnie Paul and Rex hold down the fort like you'd expect them to. I was not wowed by Vinnie Paul's performance here like I had been on earlier releases, though. Again, it is a shame.

Phil Anselmo decided he was going to be angry some more and shout in to the microphone for forty-five minutes again. Remember when he used to be able to sing? He had a great range there, didn't he? Apparently sounding like every other hardass frontman was more important than his natural ability.

Reinventing the Steel pretty much sounds like a talentless wanna-be Pantera band in a crappy recording studio. Avoid it.

I've always said that Pantera would have one hell of a “best of” compilation, but until then we'd have to put up with mediocre albums. Honestly, Pantera would have been better off making that best of, because Reinventing the Steel sure isn't contributing much to it.

The average Pantera album consists of 3-4 extremely good songs, and 7-8 pathetic songs. The band's final offering has addressed this problem and made a consistent album, that doesn't drop down to any truly abysmal songs. However, it's got even less standout tracks than earlier albums.

There's some changes from the standard Pantera mould here, it's still got heavy groove, probably the bands thickest slab of southern influence, and very simplistic riffs which make up the band's core sound, but Reinventing the Steel offers up a lot more fast material than usual. Not as much as on The Great Southern Trendkill, but more than the few albums before it. In fact most songs have moments that are at the verge of being thrash. Note that it's just quick pulses of thrash thrown into a vast sea of groove. But it's there. Along with this, there's a big step up in the quality of song structures and dynamics, featuring less linear approaches, and more than 4 or 5 different riffs in a song.

Probably the most notable change is the lowering in the numbers of solos. Now there’s not one in every song. Most still have one, but “Hellbound” doesn't have one, and even the complex "Revolution is my Name" doesn't have a clearly defined solo section, among others. Even then, the solos are really a long step down from Darrel's best work. They still have the Dimebag unique touch, but it's not that stunning. This is pity because Pantera have relied on Dime's solos to really take the songs to being more than stupidly easy-to-play groovers. Instead, this album has a little more complex riffing for its technicality fix. It's still slow as hell most of the time, but the guitars definitely have a lot more going on than usual. The results are a mix in quality, some songs have interesting guitar work, but most of the time it's only average. Still, there's no three note riffs like "Walk" on here, most of the time they've got a very southern rolling approach.

The problem with that album is that it's so safe sounding. There's a little more emphasis on some areas than usual, and other sections of the album are less in depth, but for the main part, the band just plays it safe, and sticks to what they have always done. The solos are dumbed down or just plain absent, the drums are pretty dull, rarely showing any off any of Vinnie Paul’s skills beyond his ability to play complex things with his feet, whilst not losing any arm mobility. This is still a good piece of drum work, but he doesn't seem to be overly powerful or meaty. Phil's screams are almost exclusively limited to his low growl, with his higher screams only coming out on a few songs. I never really liked his high screams, but you know, they're still missing resulting everything being a little one dimensional. And the lyrics are pretty bad. Really, it's quite a cop out even for Pantera. Usually there was at least an immature sense of "Yeah, this song makes me want to fight people". But now we get songs about Texas, or about a passage of time. There's really no silly badassness to it. It's just so tame.

All over the album there are signs that the band simply didn't give a shit. the cover art is stupid, basically it seems like the band decided they wanted a picture of fire, found one, it happened to have a scrawny guy in boxers jumping through it, but they gave up looking and accepted it. Then you've got the lyrical edit on "I'll Cast a Shadow" at around the 4 minute mark, which no one seemed to notice. It just seems to hint that there wasn’t too much effort put into the album.

Pantera’s final album wasn't really a particularly bad one; it was just an uninventive, tame one, with no real drive behind it. And it shows, with most of the album being kind of dull. It does have it strengths, and it is catchy, and due to its consistency, you probably won't be forced to turn it off before it's done due to utter repulsion, but it just lacks the attention grabbers to get you to put it on in the first place.

If you have not yet listened to this album, picture yourself sitting on the couch, eating Doritos, playing videogames and listening to a metal album which afterwards you can't adequately describe. You groaned at some points, but you know that at least half of it was good. You know this is a groove band, but you're sure that the thrash was definitely there. Many of us have our 'shame bands' that we listen to, but if confronted by a fellow metalhead about this you'd probably rate this album with a "meh" so as to not lose your precious social status. That just isn't right though; when this album is good, it's very good. Yet, a "meh" would be far too kind for the garbage found here. Overall, where would this lie?

And in an album of such uncertainty, there's even more to be found because the listener isn't quite sure what genre some songs are. 'You've Got to Belong to it' has a main riff which is thrashy, yet doesn't progress like thrash riffs should. You really have to listen to this bullshit to believe it: if I may describe it in such a way, it's "chugga-chugga-chugga NCDUF&GCU$*GC$HJ chugga-chugga-chugga NCBV^EU&TIE$GHBVHS". Hey, don't look at me like that. Pantera probably wrote this shit with crayons themselves. And then afterwards, it's all groove. 'We'll Grind That Axe For a Long Time' isn't as mind-numbingly awful, but it's still mind-numbing nonetheless. Two wankers could argue whether the riffs here are groove, thrash or are just plain old, straight up heavy metal riffs, but it doesn't matter because it's boring. Nothing about it says "give a fuck about this song", so you shouldn't.

I wouldn't be surprised if anyone found themselves enjoying the track 'Goddamn Electric'. In many ways this is the stand-out track and representative of Pantera themselves because, yeah it's a groove-oriented song, but it isn't plodding. Typically I dislike groove metal although I do find that if musicians assert themselves to do so they could pull it off without suffering from the usual tediums thereof. This pretty much shits on the aforementioned tracks, and it's because they nailed it here whereas they fucked around on the other tracks, probably just to meet a track quota. Moving on...

The opening track 'Hell Bound" is pretty good although when you take out the vocals it sounds a little too much like stock music (Just like '5 Minutes Alone' and a whole bunch of songs from Vulgar Display of Power except that this isn't the works of drudges like those were). As soon as I heard that riff I knew it was from a motor cross or an insurance ad or something. Nevertheless, 'Death Rattle' is a neat slab of thrash. Not in the "let's pack as many riffs in here as possible" sense, but Pantera have at least written something memorable here. The chorus and other sections could be construed as featuring groove, but it never abandons the idea that the song must go on and thrash. At approximately 2:29, the best riff of the song and perhaps even the album kicks in, too.

(Minor aside: that's the funny thing about Pantera: a lot of the time they were mediocre and boring, but then they'd do something really effective and simple like that.)

Again with the thrash: 'Yesterday Don't Mean Shit' and 'Revolution is my Name' are more advanced in their structure than the other thrash songs and are both thoroughly enjoyable. Catchy sections, good solos, strong rhythm sections. Everything's as it should be.

In the end, everything comes full circle. The good parts of Reinventing the Steel are worthy of your attention and appreciation, and the bad parts are worthy of the skip button. Songs with a mish-mash of unsuitable ideas thrown together prove to be a red herring between the actual good songs to distract the listener about what they're actually listening to. Surely you will remember what parts you liked about this album, and the parts you didn't quite like almost make you want to listen to them again in case you "missed something" due to the confusing nature of them. Ironically, the groove-oriented 'Goddamn Electric' is formidable in being memorable and underlines that through thorough, careful writing any style of song doesn't have to be awful. Beneath all of the confusion, the bottom line is that this album is more deserving of a more positive than negative feedback. Not because of the experience from the first listen, but from the actual content; some of it is poorly written, but more often than not it's good.

Overall this is recommended to Pantera fans as usual, but for anyone else it's worth downloading the good tracks. Even if you like those there's only a slight chance you'll be happy with actually purchasing the album. Nevertheless this is a solid release, and parts of it don't get boring even upon repeat, if nothing else.

But I can’t. I really, really can’t. The first problem with this album is the shitty production. When you take into consideration that Pantera produced this album themselves, you gotta… well… UGH, NO. There is no excuse for this; the majority of the other Pantera albums had amazing production. What happened here!? A huge disappointment…

The lyrics on this release are shit. True, Pantera were never praised for their amazing songwriting… but they could’ve written something better than:

“When I die, I cast a shadow
And I'll fly, I cast a shadow

Everybody get fucking up!
I cast a shadow...
I... I cast a shadow
I cast a shadow...
I... I cast a shadow

When I die, I cast a shadow
And I'll rise, I cast a shadow”

One part of this CD that I had the highest hopes for before my first listen was the usual that’s to be expected from Pantera: kickass guitar from Dimebag Darrel. As much as I hate to admit it, I haven’t found that here either. No, don’t get me wrong, there is SOME good playing from him (such as on Hellbound, probably the only song on here that compares to anything off of “Cowboys From Hell”). But around 90% of the playing is boring, mediocre, weak, lame, shitty, unexciting, dull (need I think of more adjectives?) mallcore riffs. No, I’m being perfectly serious. No more of Pantera’s godly thrash solos. Mallcore riffs… gimme a break Darrel, what happened?

The songwriting in general (not talking about lyrics now, but music) is… well… sloppy. I can think of any other way to describe it. All the sounds seem to be forced together, and the vocals that are attempting to tie them all together failed miserably. Phil’s voice is steadily dying out, as it could be starting to be heard of Vulgar Display of Power… It has gotten so weak; it just doesn’t cut it anymore. Combined with the sloppy drumming, which is way off in a lot of parts, combined with Darrel’s disappointing weak riffs create a mixture that is almost sickening to listen to.

It’s quite a shame for Pantera to end their career this way, really. They started off with “Metal Magic” which was also terrible. Starting out with BAD glam/hair-metal, they evolved to one of my favorite power thrash bands of all time… and then once again turned to shit, this time in the form of mallcore that almost makes Trivium seem like a great band. Sad to see this happen to Pantera; they should’ve called it quits ten years ago.

-Marcin C.

Pantera's legacy is not a pretty one. They began as shitty glam, evolved into some pretty sweet thrash, than degraded into shitty groove (despite the fact that they pretty much innovated that style of metal). Reinventing the Steel is their final futile effort to justify their overrated brand of sludgy groove-core garbage, and it's probably their worst album since their glam metal debut.

Dimebag Darrell is a phenomenal guitar player. His riff-writing on Cowboys from Hell was brilliant in execution and powerful in delivery. So why the fuck did he regress into pumping out shitty downtuned groove riffs? The rhythm guitar here is the spiritual precursor to Darrell's next band, Damageplan, and almost as bad as everything on that band's New Found Power album. His lead work is still good, but his solos encompass a very small part of the songs. The songs generally consist of agonizingly banal mallcore rhythms accompanied by Phil Anselmo's increasingly irritating vocal roars. The lyrics are garbage, plain and simple. The only memorable parts of the album are the guitar solos and a few occasional rhythm/drum collaborations, namely in "Hellbound," "Goddamn Electric," and "You've Got to Belong to It." These moments are few and far between, and their rarity is the primary reason for this album's failure.

Worst of all is the production. Inexcusably shitty. Their fucking glam albums sounded better than this. Perhaps its worth noting that the band produced this album themselves. It certainly shows.

This is a sad way to end the legacy of the same band that brought us the mighty Cowboys from Hell, and even the memorable Vulgar Display of Power. Reinventing the Steel reinvents nothing, only reinforcing the fact that groove metal lacks innovation and sucks major ass. Avoid this atrocity, it's an unfitting final release from an otherwise talented band.

I picked up a second hand copy of this album a few months after it came out, and it immediately got a treatment that I rarely give a CD, a use of the repeat button on a single track in “Revolution is my Name”. At the time I was still occasionally tuning into VH1 and had seen the video several times. It always associated it with some of the better moments on the Trendkill release, which I had gotten into not long before. Recently I gave this one another listen and found out that there were some positive things going on here, though nothing that stood out as being phenomenal.

Pretty much we have 5 songs on here that qualify as good, while 2 others are listenable and the other 3 are completely groove dominated throwaways. I can’t still figure out why Pantera resorted to writing more groove material, when it was being taken up by the likes of Limp Bizkit and other posers in the Nu-Metal scene. “We’ll Grind that Axe for a Long Time” is kind of self-refuting lyrically when you think about, it is bitching about the establishment, when in fact Pantera had pretty much become the establishment in their own right. They actually sought to protest the fact that pop bands keep recycling their material, and then proceeds to write a song about it over a set of riffs recycled from “Mouth for War”, excuse me while I step aside for a moment to laugh my ass off.

Things are slightly less ridiculous lyrically on “You’ve got to belong to it”, but the guitar riffs are fucking comical sounding as hell. Dimebag Darrel was a decent guitar player, although amongst the flock of shredders in the 80s he was par for the course, but here it just doesn’t show at all. That annoying as hell high end guitar effect that he uses for the break down section just kills it for me, let alone the fact that we have way too much groovy repetition in the riff section. “Goddamn Electric” (Goddamn Boring would be more appropriate) has more groove, ergo it sucks as bad as most of their early 90s material. It’s too fucking slow, the riffs are under-developed and dry sounding, and Phil’s vocals sound as nauseating as they did on VDoP.

On the mediocre side of things, “Uplift” has its moment, but is mostly a more up tempo variation of the same groove crap that I just went through. The main riff is solid, but repeated way too much. The bridge before the chorus sounds almost like something Jimi Hendrix would do. During the solo section things are pretty cool, and the guitar and bass have a brief lead duel, something rare for this band. “I’ll cast a shadow” has a nice up tempo intro, but then it settles into a groove for the verse, and I begin to lose interest until the tempo picks up again. Phil is occasionally singing in a clean voice, which is a positive as even after 3 albums of screaming his lungs out he can’t get that low death metal voice right at all.

On the more positive side of things, “Hellbound” learns the lesson of previous albums and elects to keep things short, and properly balances out the groovy sections with the more Black Metal sounding chorus. “Yesterday don’t mean shit” has a hell of an awesome thrash riff in it, which almost sounding like it could have been on “Seasons in the Abyss” by Slayer. “Death Rattle” is a great speed metal song featuring some solid riffing, unfortunately I had to go through 5 other songs to get to it, usually the fast cooker is track 2. “It Makes the Disappear” starts off with a goofy guitar effect, but then gets cooking with another great thrash riff and basically keeps it interesting for the entire song.

And the grand highlight of this album is the single “Revolution is my Name”, and it stands strong in it’s delivery of a single message, this band is finally finished beating a dead horse. They got some good licks in on the decaying stallion corpse with Trendkill, but ultimately their glory days were gone with the end of the year 1991. This song encompasses all the best thrash ideas that were found on Cowboys from Hell and the few diamonds that you can pull out of the rough of VDoP and FBD, in addition to one last effort by Phil Anselmo to sing with his voice rather than fart through his mouth.

Not long after this Pantera called it quits and they did it 8 years too late if you ask me. One of the common misconceptions people have about those who were angry with this band is that they were angry because they were successful, they may articulate that anger in such a way that one would think that, but actually the reason for the anger lay in the inferior product they put out. Vulgar Display of Power was a contrived piece of garbage that tried to marry thrash with groove metal, Far Beyond Driven was a slightly better produced version of the exact same thing, and the Great Southern Trendkill was a properly focused expression of rage towards the truly bad elements of human society. So where does this album fall into that mix you ask? It falls somewhere in between the first two and the third one, pure and simple. It has some nostalgic moments to it, most of them borrowed from better days; otherwise it is a self-contradictory attempt to free itself from its own success. When a person becomes the leader of a country, he is laughed at and called an idiot if he complains about the direction that it’s going, because he is the one determining the direction. Pantera bitched about the mainstream, and continued to do so long after the mainstream made them rich for the musical compromises they made with it. It is fashionable non-conformity in the same vain as Kurt Cobain, only in his case he never had any great accomplishments to throw away, Pantera did and it will haunt them for the rest of their careers.

In conclusion, this CD is bargain bin material. Half of this album is good; the other half is either forgettable or painfully horrid. I bought this CD off a friend who didn’t want it anymore for $6, and I still feel like I got ripped off as even today I could get the good songs off it for less through legal MP3 downloads, despite price inflation. The lost generation of early 90s metal heads who lived for the groove will like some of this, but everyone else should stick to real metal, something that Pantera had forgotten about a while ago

One can see the decay that was slipping into the Pantera camp during this new "Reinventing the Steel" album. While a quality "party-death" metal album it was, it certainly wasn't the focused surge of "Far Beyond Driven" or the strange redneck-genius of "Trendkill". Pantera weren't together for this, the songs were obviously written by two seperate parties hiding from one another and the vibe is a disjointed one at worst and a loose ass-kicking at best. This may be the album with the most style over substance...but it's obvious that Pantera weren't in this for the focused attack but to keep the name alive through hard times for a band that has taken the stick from the underground and often faced accusations of being pretenders to the throne.

In terms of songwriting, the record has three or four knucklehead classics in "Hellbound", "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" and "Death Rattle". Much of the record though is sloppy, with terrible vocal melodies that show Phil losing his way around the often sloppy riff-structures. Is much of it enjoyable but lacking in hook? Sure. Is this anything compared to "Far Beyond Driven" or "Trendkill"? Hardly. One can still feel the redneck-beer-rage spitting from the mix, but one can hardly remember most of it once the record has completed it's running order. "Death Rattle" and "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" though served as passable singles that save the band from sinking into the "angry but directionless" mess that this could have been.

The seeds of dissention and musical disagreement can be heard on this release in plain form. Thankfully though, the bands commercial grunt-and-roar approach does provide a few sure kickers to keep the Pantera party moving...

It's half-good, half-horrible and all somewhat pointless for a band that had managed a strange classic only one album before...

So it took pretty a long time for Pantera to come up with a follow up to "The Great Southern Trendkill", and I recall being quite curious when I finally got my hands on this album, Pantera were never my favourite Metal band ever, but I always used to enjoy their stuff. They had their own thing going and they did it well; my only concern was that IMO the songwriting, despite taking a much more personal and distinctive approach, has started to become quite watered down since "Far Beyond Driven". For this reason, "Reinventing The Steel" quite surprised me when I first cranked it up. It was still packed to the brim with that typical Pantera-styled aggression that marked "The Great Southern Trendkill", but this time the boys slowed it took a bit more time to come up with some more interesting riffs to hold the listener's attention. Not that I hated "The Great Souther Trendkill", but I just found it overdone at points, and still believe it could have been better with a bit more variety thrown in.

Album opener "Hellbound" assaults the listener with classic Pantera trademarks from the first second: Dimebag's guitar is still there with its load of vicious distortion, Phil's vocals are abrasive as ever (although I wish he'd stop using those whispering/moaning interludes which make him sound like he's having anal sex with an orangutan), Vinnie's not the best drummer in the world but still shows a rare precision, and Rex's bass... hey, someone turned his bass volume up! That's a good achievement, for the former "Rocker" guy has quite some cool tricks up his sleeve for this album. Anyway, "Hellbound" alternates more laid-back verses to angry choruses, and finishes with a nice Thrashy acceleration. Powerful, varied and accessible - great way to open an album.
"Goddamn Electric" continues the thought although the rhythm variation between verse and bridge/chorus is more drastic and the tempo is generally slower. Phil throws in some clean vocals in the chorus, which helps the variation, and Kerry King of Slayer fame contributes with a solo in the outro... nothing to write home about really, as it barely classifies as a solo (just a bunch of distorted noises with - guess what? - lots of whammy bar masturbation). Still, the song stands out thanks to its heavy groove feeling.
"Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" kicks the speed up and relies on a very strong rhythmic backbone provided by Rex and Vinnie's excellent work; above it, cool riffs and Phil's angry performance complete the winning formula. Watch out for the bass lines underneath Dimebag's solo, and see why having an audible bass sound is a good thing.
"You've Got to Belong To It" is further focused on the rhythm, with Vinnie pulling off some nice patterns closely followed by Anselmo's vocal lines; a bit of inconsistency is to be found in the riff department, but the good points make up for it. Dimebag's shrill guitar hook is also pretty damn cool.
Then we get "Revolution Is My Name", which opens with a rather pointless slow intro before kicking into a great groove which sustains the whole song. The whole band's performance is top notch here, and Phil stretches his limits swithcing between cleaner parts to agrressive screams.

The second half of the record begins with "Death Rattle", a short and fast injection of crushing riffs and intense vocals. The riff structure is actually more complicated than a first listen would let imagine, and the whole thing is a great combination of mature musicianship and no-frills aggression. It can't be a bad thing, can it?
"We'll Grind That Axe For a Long Time"... long title, and the song itself seems to be a bit too long too. It's not really bad, it just tends to drag on a bit due to sections that would simply need to be cut off before they last long enough to become repetitive (see the chorus).
"Uplift" has more bite, especially in the first part, but then again drones on for too long near the end; still, it has some pretty interesting riffs going on here and there, and Vinnie's drumming is precise as ever.
The pace goes down for "It Makes Them Disappear", a dark, brooding track filled with heavy riffs, tortured vocals and haunting clean guitar passages (although Dimebag could have picked up a less silly effect for it).
"I'll Cast a Shadow" retains a similar mood but lies on the faster side, and closes the album on a high note... or rather would, if it wasn't for that lame talking section at the end which doesn't serve any purpose at all.

At the end of the day "Reinventing The Steel" comes out as a great addition to the Pantera discography. It won't make you change your mind about the band's music in any way, so if you liked Pantera's pervious albums you can go for it right now, otherwise avoid like plague.