When attempting to describe the thrashing, multi-tentacled rock colossus that is Pantera, it becomes rapidly obvious that mere words are not enough. What terrestrial term, after all, could properly illustrate the cataclysmic grind of such relentlessly horrible noise? What phrase could possibly encapsulate the Texan thrashniks' decade-long refusal to bow to either evolution or taste?
Exactly. Pantera - tonight playing to a tumult of old-school metal heads and ultra-cool skater kids - demand an entirely unique lexicon; a language that truly conveys the sheer Neanderthal hideousness of their molten aural onslaught.
"GRRAARRGGHHRRURRR!" bellows bearded lungsmith Phil Anselmo, immediately and effortlessly hitting the nail on its angry head. Without the eco-warrior agenda of Sepultura or the dorks-in-shorts rap-isms of the Korn/Limp Bizkit brigade, Pantera have found their brand of unreconstructed gore-core discord cast into the metal wilderness. Current album 'Reinventing The Steel' - tonight played in its (near) entirety - has thus seen the redoubtable rednecks dig their furious heels even further into metal's primordial mire.
In the face of sports metal's lame irony filings, it's a ferociously intense, refreshingly simple thing to behold; a monosyllabic, slavering beast that has no agenda beyond the redemptive pursuit of noise.
"GRRAARRGGHHRRURRR!" howls Anselmo again during cast-iron closer 'Cowboys From Hell'. The zeitgeist may have gone thataway, but Pantera's righteously dumb voice is as eloquent as ever.
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