"Hell ain't a bad place to be," the polemicist Bon Scott tells us in his Let There Be Rock dissertation. As usual, he was being understated. Hell is the most metal place in the universe, as emphasized by Slayer's waiting, Venom's welcome and Stryper inviting the Devil there. Ozzy and Lemmy both went a-raising, right on the same song. Some of metal's finest documents start in the underworld, or at least right next door, including AC/DC's two best albums, Megadeth's most violent junkie dream and Guns N' Roses two-CD loose cannon. But no one ever made it sound louder or angrier than Pantera.
Pantera dominated the '90s as the world's best and biggest metal band, just as Black Sabbath ran the '70s and Metallica owned the '80s. They kicked off the decade by introducing themselves as the Cowboys From Hell, but bookended it by dragging us back home with them on their final album.
Even when Dimebag was still alive, there was much uncertainty as to whether we'd ever see another Pantera album. Every Pantera fan who read about them in metal mags (and if you were a Pantera fan, you absolutely read metal mags) knew that there was infighting between Phil Anselmo and the Brothers Abbott. It had been four years since The Great Southern Trendkill, years in which mainstream metal had been reoccupied by Korn and Limp Bizkit. But on the wonderfully preposterously-titled Reinventing the Steel, Pantera outsavaged not only the nu-metal legions, but more importantly their own storied career.
"Hellbound" is a band at their most ruthless, throwing all of their brutality into their last testament while still hanging on the the grooves. Phil Anselmo's banshee scream in the chorus is the stuff of immortals. He couldn't keep it much longer, as his voice settled into its present-day baritone, and the band couldn't even stay together after the Reinventing the Steel tour, with Phil Anselmo famously telling Metal Hammer "Dimebag Darrell deserves to be beaten severely." That quote was run on the magazine's cover one week before Darrell was killed by a gunman.
Pantera may have no longer been friends on Reinventing the Steel, but by Satan's graces they were still a band. If Hell really is other people, than I'm glad Pantera chose to leave the tape rolling.
This week, Metallica's Kill 'Em All turns 30. I'm listening as I write this (yes, I can barely control my head enough to type), and it sounds just as great as I remembered. One of the best rock debuts and an all-time classic metal album. I'd even argue that it's one of the greatest punk albums ever. But one thing that always surprises me about Kill 'Em All is how modern it sounds.
Three decades have done nothing to wane Kill 'Em All's ferocity. If anything, it sounds even more brutal, now knowing how many thrash and metalcore bands couldn't emulate it without watering it down. The production is perfectly raw, the kind of sound that black metal bands consistently aim for and always fail at. Were the scowling, acne-faced boys of Metallica to support Kill 'Em All today, they could hop on a tour with anyone from Meshuggah to Kvelertak to the Dillinger Escape Plan to Immortal.
But why is this? Consider Venom's Black Metal, released a few seasons before Kill 'Em All. Its influence is all over Metallica--that hardcore-infected metal and basement production are just as discernible here, only Venom did it before Metallica. The lyrics aren't nearly as good as Metallica's, but no one listens to metal for the lyrics. The music on Black Metal is pretty great. So why does it sound enjoyably silly today, whereas Kill 'Em All sounds essential?
When music ages poorly, it has little to do with how influential it is, as Black Metal proves. It has even less to do with the way it sounded at the time. Giorgio Moroder's entire career feels buried in the '80s, yet Daft Punk just included him on their ultra-hip new album. What really matters is how the artists that emulate the sound compare to the originals. Countless bands have sounded like Metallica since 1983, including several great ones, but none of whom are as transcendent as Kill 'Em All. Shortly after Black Metal kicked off a musical renaissance, it was outclassed by Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Testament. I'm impressed that Venom's influence has carried over to bands as varied as High on Fire and Behemoth, but I'm even less likely to play Black Metal when the best work of the latter two bands is available.
This year, Venom's influence turned up on the Melvins' excellent covers album Everybody Loves Sausages, which King Buzzo and the gang opened with their own version of Venom's "Warhead." It never stops being fun to watch a band as idiosyncratic as the Melvins constantly increase in stature. At least once a year, it seems like a great new band breaks through on the sounds that the Melvins defined--Sleep, Mastodon, Boris, Neurosis, Isis, Big Business, Made Out of Babies, Torche, Coliseum and East of the Wall all come to mind. All of these artists are honoring Houdini and Stoner Witch with their music, but none of them have been able to occupy that sound from the Melvins. One still can't get that unpredictable avant-sludge-stoner-doom-punk-grunge-metal anywhere else. Yet with more and more great bands working on those ideas, the Melvins matter more now than ever.
Think about the band that's generally considered the architect of heavy metal, Black Sabbath. Reasonable listeners still credit them with inventing and perfecting the genre. Their chief rival at the time was Deep Purple, a quintet of equally innovative Brits who basically popularized the idea of blues-based hard rock being played faster than Led Zeppelin. Purple easily outsold Sabbath, got more radio play, generally received better reviews and often played bigger venues. But Deep Purple couldn't survive the rise of AC/DC, Van Halen and Aerosmith, none of whom tried to compete with Sabbath's tuned-down doom rock and occult-inspired lyrics, but all of whom thoroughly trounced "Highway Star" several times over.
It's examples like this that remind us why originality in rock music, which infamously stole themes and progressions from the blues, is overrated. It's admirable to break ground, but it doesn't matter much if the ground that you break gets covered by someone who writes better songs than you.
Other than 666, no number is more metal than 13. Its bad luck powers are revealed in musical tributes from several respected metal bands, many of whom have stumbled in mediocre musical salutes to Jason Voorhees' signature number. Better to honor the new year with a drink at the Lucky 13 Saloon than a slog through Cruelty and the Beast.
Few songwriters have survived the 13 curse, and even fewer have done so with a reasonable amount of decibels. Here's a brief audio history of 13.
1. Anvil, "This is Thirteen"
Interestingly, this is where Anvil's luck started to change--thirteen albums into their career, when a coinciding documentary gave them by far the biggest success of their lives. All their talk of wizardry and superstition couldn't hold a candle to watching them get lost and broke in Europe.
2. Anthrax, "13"
What the hell is this? Basically a short exercise for Anthrax's rhythm section, and a reminder that Anthrax were the first good thrash metal band to be intentionally silly on record.
3. Black Flag, "Room 13"
"Keep me alive!" screams 20-year-old Henry Rollins, making that effort sound like a struggle for the last time in his career. "I need to hang on!" is the part that everyone remembers.
4. Cradle of Filth, "Thirteen Autumns and a Widow"
Cruelty and the Beast is often regarded as COF's peak, but even Cradle's best songs are better remembered than reheard. Throw it in the mix for the 13-year-old in all of us.
5. Danizg, "Thirteen"
Written by Danzig originally for Johnny Cash's best studio album, American Recordings. He didn't release his own version until years later on 6:66 Satan's Child. Cash's folky reading and Danzig's goth-blues version both hold up, although it's abundantly clear whom was doing the other one a favor.
6. Megadeth, "Thirteen"
By album number 13, there was no defense of Dave Mustaine's political or social positions, but also no doubt of his chops or longevity.
7. Mercyful Fate, "Thirteen Invitations"
Mercyful Fate's influence on metal was flourishing when they reunited for 1993's In the Shadows. The result suggested that they'd ignored the last ten years of black metal.
8. Motörhead, "Cat Scratch Fever"
"First time that I got it I was thirteen years old," Lemmy amends the lyric in Motörhead's take on Nugent's staple. "Ours knocked his out of the fucking loop--of course, nobody remembers ours," wrote Lemmy in his autobiography. He's half-right.
9. Pantera, "13 Steps to Nowhere"
Anselmo was a good sport to sacrifice his lyrics to a song where all anyone can pay attention to is the drumming. A lesser guitarist than Dimebag would be trampled, but even he knows better than to stand in the way of one of Vinnie Paul's greatest intros.
10. The Pixies, "No. 13 Baby"
Frank Black honors a girl with a special tattoo, who at least had the sense to get it somewhere she can cover up for job interviews.
11. Social Distortion, "Bad Luck"
"Thirteen's my lucky number," laments cowpunk hero Mike Ness in this gem from Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, years before another country crossover would make the same claim. Hey Taylor, is it too late for your to pick a tourmate for next year?
12. Suicidal Tendencies, "Emotion No. 13"
Lights...Camera...Revolution! completed ST's first transition from hardcore to metal, with hits like "You Can't Bring Me Down" and "Send Me Your Money," plus thrashing deep cuts like this one. If "Emotion No. 13" had been released today, it would have taken the e-word back from Chris Carrabba.
13. Venom, "13"
Not bad, actually, out of context with the 300 other Venom songs that sound exactly like it.
