WTLR - Vulgar Display of Power

Way Too Late Review

Vulgar Display of Power

Every band has their “defining album.” For Metallica, it’s Master of Puppets. For Megadeth, it’s Rust in Peace. Iron Maiden has Number of the Beast. And for Pantera, it’s Vulgar Display of Power. While some people cling to the idea that it’s Cowboys from Hell, I firmly disagree. Not only was Vulgar Display of Power a well mastered, professionally produced album, it also cemented what would become the band’s sound through the 90’s and early 2000’s. Cowboys from Hell is a great album, and a review on that will be coming, but that album was a heel-turn, it was something new that they were trying out. They hadn’t yet found their sound.

Vulgar Display of Power was released on February 25th, 1992 to critical acclaim in the heavy metal community. It was the album that turned a lot of people on to Pantera. Between radio play and it being a regular feature on MTV, it was no doubt the album that broke through to the largest audience. The band’s first four releases were independently done and featured a more Van Halen/KISS style sound, with a singer to match. There are traces of this on Cowboys from Hell, especially in Anselmo’s vocals, but it’s completely obliterated in Vulgar. What their sixth release did was redefine the band and push them into the pantheon of heavy metal gods. The songs were heavier, darker, and the vocals came out in full to match the tone of the music the band was putting out.

They were more familiar with thrash by this point, they were more in tune with their writing style. Every song, even the ballad “This Love,” is an assault on the eardrums. Between the pummeling percussive work of Vinny Paul, the riff-driven, solo-mastering guitar work of Dimebag Darrell, the punchy bass of Rex Brown, and the unstoppable, growling vocal work of Phil Anselmo, there isn’t anything to hate about this album.

These were four guys, in their prime, pushing to fill a void that Metallica left when they released the eponymous album (the dreaded “Black Album”), and they fucking succeeded. Not only did they succeed, but they superseded. They throat-punched and dropkicked their way into the mainstream and found a fanbase that couldn’t wait to leave their shows with bloody noses from messy moshpits. Pantera’s sound was defined by Vulgar Display of Power.

The only song on this album that I actually skip is “Walk,” and that’s not because it’s a bad song, it’s just the go-to song whenever a hard rock station wanted to play Pantera. I grew up listening to a radio station called 93.7-The Edge, which later became known as 93X. My mother specifically told me never to listen to that station, so that’s obviously the one that I first listened to. Now, when I first started listening to it, it was a completely different station. 93.7-The Edge was built around heavy metal with a sprinkling of hard rock, alt-rock, and grunge. By the time I was out of high school, it’d gone through a management change and with that, the sound of the station changed. That meant that the only three Pantera songs they would ever play were “Walk,” “Cowboys from Hell,” and “Cemetery Gates.”

“Walk” was also the go-to song of the local bands that I used to watch post high school. Whenever a band wanted to seem hard, they would play “Walk,” and usually butcher the shit out of it. Make no mistake, friends, you can cover whatever song you want, but you have to do it justice. If you can’t nail the solo, you shouldn’t play the opening bend of that tune.

Among my favorites on the album are “Fucking Hostile,” “A New Level,” and “By Demons Be Driven.” I think it’s easy to understand why I’d appreciate a song like “Fucking Hostile.” Most teenagers get angry, most teenagers need a release, and to this day, that song actually calms me down. Especially the end of the track where Anselmo nearly blows his vocals to smithereens and there’s a tiny bit of feedback from the amps. Everything an angry kid is is encapsulated in two minutes and forty-eight seconds.

“By Demons Be Driven” is another one that I absolutely love. There’s a symmetry to what Vinnie Paul and Darrell play that helps to unify the song for the chorus, and then there’s this beautiful walking riff that Darrell plays under the verse. Lyrically the song is as muddled and off-the-wall as Phil’s mind probably is. There’s no real cohesion there, there’s plenty of symbolism without message, and that leaves it entirely open to interpretation on the part of the listener. While I sometimes appreciate direct messages in songs, I also love ones that are more veiled than that, and “By Demons Be Driven” is definitely a veiled song.

“A New Level” has one of the most face-melting solos on the album, and one of Dimebag’s best. The whole song chugs along with a groove-riff that prompts the head to bob up and down. It’s a headbanger, plain and simple, and readily shows that the band is capable to taking up the reins as heavy metal’s newest powerhouse. “A new level, of confidence, and power!” They certainly had all of that. It showed what this album was. A new level.

Pantera did something wonderful with this album. They steered even further into the heavy turn they took with Cowboys from Hell and fucking dominated while doing it. This is the album that cemented their place in heavy metal and made them a mainstay. They weren’t a flash in the pan. Vulgar Display of Power platinumed in the UK and Australia and was two-time platinum here in the United States. They earned their spot in heavy metal history with this album.

It’s part of the heavy-metal-beginner’s package for sure. Required listening for anyone who wants to take part in the community, and detractors be damned, this is one fine album. You don’t have to agree, but you do have to step aside. I’d recommend this album to anyone fresh to the genre, and I urge all those who are already initiated to give it another listen. It’s brutal, it’s fast, it’s a bone-crushing good time. It truly is a vulgar display of power.