Pantera‘s revolutionary four-album run in the Nineties is so unfuckwithable that it’s sometimes easy to forget that 2000 swan song Reinventing the Steel is just as much of a ripper.
The band have acknowledged this themselves over the years, with bassist Rex Brown suggesting the record got lost in the shuffle during the peak of nu-metal popularity. But while he knows some fans think Steel is the weakest release of the band’s classic, Cowboys-and-onwards era, he’s also called it “a great last performance” and “a sledgehammer.” He’s not wrong, either.
But what is the most hard-hitting cut from Pantera’s final studio full-length? The most goddamn electric metal track that still casts a shadow some 25 years after first hitting our ears? This is what we asked our Revolver readers, and these were their top-five picks, ranked accordingly.
“Death Rattle”
While we saw a western diamondback rattlesnake staring us down on the front cover to 1996’s The Great Southern Trendkill, the spirit of this particularly venomous viper lived on through Reinventing the Steel — perhaps most obviously on speed-dealing standout “Death Rattle.”
The detuned thrasher lunges into attack mode from the jump, with Vinnie Paul raining down a numbing rumble of rapid-fire snare hits to compliment the all-aggression dive-work and precision trilling served up by his brother, guitarist Dimebag Darrell.
An uneasy, percussive, predatory shiver shakes you to your core throughout this steely fan favorite.
“Goddamn Electric”
Dimebag is one of metal’s greatest guitar heros, and “Goddamn Electric” is just one of myriad memorably outstanding performances lain down by the Lonestar shredder.
There’s a particularly depraved dissonance applied to the noisy note pivots of the pre-chorus. The song shouts out whiskey, weed, Black Sabbath and Slayer, but Dime also seems to subversively pay homage to Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” in the heaviest way possible. His solo is a knuckle-busting standout in his repertoire.
We also have to give Slayer’s Kerry King props for tracking his chaotically squealing outro solo in the bathroom of a Dallas Ozzfest stop. Nasty, to say the least.
“Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit”
Yes, we’re celebrating a now-quarter-century-old metal classic — and for good reason — but “Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit,” Reinventing the Steel’s savagely slammed-down anti-nostalgia anthem, makes a solid case for living in the present.
Pantera may have gone into the Steel recording sessions studying some of their favorite moments across their back catalog, but “Yesterday” was their pledge to keep the momentum going forward. There’s “no rewinding time,” after all.
Musically, Pantera propelled themselves into the new century with unflinching, chromatic brutishness and a series of surefire grooves from master kit-blaster Vinnie Paul. Nevertheless, the song still stokes the Pantera heads out there — you could even say that “Yesterday” still means something to their fan base.
“I’ll Cast a Shadow”
A good chunk of Reinventing the Steel seems to revolve around Pantera taking stock of their legacy, but no track speaks to this more than “I’ll Cast a Shadow.” 25 years on from the release of the LP, in many ways the band’s law of the claw rules on.
Indeed, few groups revolutionized or shepherded metal through the Nineties quite like Pantera. Countless guitarists chased the scooped tone and razorwire style Dimebag brought to the table, while Anselmo’s vocals set the bar high for mainstream extremity. The influence still runs deep through modern metal. Both are on fine display on “I’ll Cast a Shadow,” but the wah-crunching bass work from Brown is likewise priceless.
As the last song on Steel, there’s a poignant, fitting finality looming over “I’ll Cast a Shadow.” What a way to go out.
“Revolution Is My Name”
Beyond its frenetic and furious performance, “Revolution Is My Name” is a philosophically transfixing late Pantera anthem.
Are you the same person you were 10 years ago or is life a series of revolutionary evolutions? Anselmo acknowledges this quandary in-song, on the one hand, by hollering that he “can’t stay the same,” yet he knows also some things will never change. That’s kind of a mindfuck, though that seesawing personality crisis doesn’t dull the impact of this juggernaut metal single — the thing still sounds absolutely huge.
“Revolution Is My Name” taps into the classic Texas power-groove swing of Pantera’s Nineties heyday, takes a couple jarring stylistic swerves, and features one of Anselmo’s most infectiously melody-swaggered chorus hooks. Fans feel its one of the GOATs in the band’s catalogue, and that may never change.