After rebranding themselves as the Cowboys from Hell at the dawn of the Nineties, Pantera got even nastier with their sixth full-length release. There’s no foolin’ with that album title, either — Vulgar Display of Power was the Texas quartet’s most violently thrashed-and-grooved release yet, by far.
Driven by the famously mid-scooped tone of Dimebag Darrell Abbott and the bulldog menace of lead barker Phil Anselmo, Vulgar is a vicious mix of lean-and-mean stadium stomp-outs (“Walk”), sawed-off thrash blasts (“Mouth for War”) and dejected ballads (“This Love”). It’s the sound of a band taking their heaviness to a whole new level, and changing metal forevermore.
