Pantera – Vulgar Display Of Power (1992)
Pantera was an American heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas influenced by the great New Orleans metal band Exhorder. Formed by the Abbott brothers, Vinnie Paul (drums) and Dimebag Darrell (guitar) in 1981,bassist Rex Brown would join in late 1981 with vocalist Terry Glaze. In 1987 Phil Anselmo became the group’s lead vocalist. In 2003, Pantera officially disbanded. Any hope of a reunion was lost in 2004, when Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed on-stage at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio on December 8 while performing with Damageplan.
One of the most influential heavy metal albums of the 1990s, Vulgar Display of Power is said to have played a major role in defining groove metal. Several songs from this release have become some of the band’s best known, such as “Fucking Hostile”, “Mouth for War”, “This Love”, and “Walk”, the latter of which reached #35 on the UK Singles Chart. The album is the band’s first to be labeled with a Parental Advisory.
During the 90s, MTV’s Headbangers Ball used excerpts from the album’s songs for the show’s opening theme, bumpers, and closing theme. Perhaps the most prominent sample is that of Anselmo screaming “hostile,” taken from the end of the song “F-cking Hostile”. “Rise,” “Regular People (Conceit)” and “Mouth for War” were covered by Robert Prince for the first-person shooter computer game Doom, and a cover of “This Love” appeared in Doom II: Hell on Earth.
The title of the album “Vulgar Display of Power“is from a line in the 1973 film, The Exorcist. When Father Damien Karras asks Regan MacNeil (or the demon who possesses her) to break her own straps and release herself using her evil power, Regan replies “that’s much too vulgar a display of power.”
1. “Mouth for War” 3:56
2. “A New Level” 3:57
3. “Walk” 5:15
4. “Fucking Hostile” 2:49
5. “This Love” 6:32
6. “Rise” 4:36
7. “No Good (Attack the Radical)” 4:50
8. “Live in a Hole” 4:59
9. “Regular People (Conceit)” 5:27
10. “By Demons Be Driven” 4:39
11. “Hollow” 5:45
Released February 25, 1992. Recorded 1991, Pantego Sound Studio, Pantego, Texas