This album has already been reviewed on Blogcritics by Chris Puzak, who found it uninspiring at best. However, since I have a different opinion, I'm not going to let a little thing like repetition stop me!
First, a reviewer's bias disclosure so you can tell where I'm coming from: Pantera: Cowboys From Hell: B; Vulgar Display of Power: A; Far Beyond Driven: B+; Great Southern Trendkill: C+; Reinventing the Steel: Sold it to a used CD shop after a week.
I have always felt that the heart of Pantera wasn't Phil Anselmo but the Abbott brothers, Dimebag and Vinnie Paul. Once Phil's personality started making itself evident and he started getting so full of himself (and drugs), their music went so far downhill that it became a parody of itself. Which is why I haven't checked out Superjoint Ritual yet, incidentally.
Suffice it to say that I was really looking forward to Damageplan's debut. I listened when they streamed the whole album on their website, and was pleased, but not overwhelmed with excitement. I bought the album when it came out and have been listening to it fairly regularly since, and it has grown on me mightily.
It doesn't have profound lyrics, massively hooky radio riffs, or the speed-metal sound some of us hoped for, but it does have big helpings of what made Pantera great: big loud guitar riffs, great rhythm section, and grooves so meaty that Dr. Atkins would be proud. And it sounds great when it's cranked really loud, something that shouldn't matter as much to an upper-20-something like myself as much as it did when Vulgar came out, but somehow still does.
The vocalist, Pat Lachman, probably deserves the most criticism; he doesn't seem as talented as Phil is (or was, before the drugs got to him) and he does occasionally sound like a parody of a metal vocalist from the early 90s. He changed styles for almost every song, which is admirable, except for the nagging impression I got that he was always impersonating someone else--Phil on a few songs ("Breathing New Life" especially), and other metal vocalists on others. That said, he has some talent, and I think it is too early to call for a replacement yet. The lyrics he has to sing--whoever wrote them and whatever they are about (Chris thinks they're mainly shots at Phil, which is certainly possible)--are basically venting aggression; not exactly great poetry, but that's not what you expect from a relative of Pantera. Basically, all I ask of Damageplan is that the vocals not interfere with what Darrell and Vinnie are doing, and for the most part that's what I got.
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