Ace Frehley

Ace seemed like one of us. Kiss were superheroes, obviously, who could fly, breathe fire, spit blood and send smoke from their instruments upon command. Space Ace was right up there with them, shaking his axe in unison with his bandmates, riffs punctuated by arena-shaking explosives. But when the make came off and we started to see the men behind the Starchild, the Demon, the Spaceman and the Catman, Ace above all seemed like a regular guy, a laid back stoner who basically stumbled into company with his ambitious band dictators Paul and Gene. Nothing could stop those two guys from being rich and famous, and they've made it clear that money, power and (to use a nicer term than Gene's) women were their priorities. But even at the top, Ace seemed like he got there just because he was a nice guy who loved to rock. He could sing about as well as his fans, and that was perfect for "Rocket Ride," "Shock Me" and of course "New York Groove."

It's easy to see why Kiss fans, famously some of the most devoted and obsessive in modern music, almost universally prefer the Frehley lineup. He was there for the classics, and his contributions—that life-affirming guitar work on "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll," the haunting breakdown in "Strange Ways," the skyscraping leads on "Shout It Out Loud"—are as entrenched in Kiss' DNA as anything the band ever recorded. It's no surprise that adolescents who listen to Kiss grew up to be Dimebag Darrell, Ihsahn, Tom Morello, Mike McCready and more than any published remembrances will contain. Young Kirk Hammett dressed as Ace for Halloween and Jason Newsted changed his musical direction upon hearing Dressed to Kill. Two members of Body Count (D-Roc the Executioner and "Ill Will" Dorsey) have cited Kiss as the reason they make music. Out of all Local H's storied Halloween shows, Scott Lucas cites their Kiss performance as a personal favorite.

Ace was not above embarrassing rock star indulgences or abhorrent political preferences, and much as we wish he'd stayed in Kiss, his habit seemed like more than his taskmaster bosses could bare. But I'd bet the most expensive piece of Kiss merchandise (maybe the Koffin? No, the Gene Simmons box set that he personally delivered to your house) that if polled, the Kiss Army would overwhelmingly pick Ace as the one we'd most like to hang with. He seemed like a genuine Bill and Ted, Wayne and Garth type who was thrilled to be there, sometimes at the behest of this teetotaler bandmates (mention Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show among the Kiss Army and we'll all know exactly what you're talking about). But even Gene and Paul were willing to tolerate an inordinate amount of Ace tomfoolery in exchange for the joyous, unmistakable solos Ace put on record, a perfect dose of cheerful sloppiness for an otherwise Apollonian band.

Kiss' decision to release four solo albums from each member on the same day is widely viewed as an indulgent decision that helped tank the band's popularity. But like George Harrison releasing the best solo Beatles album, Ace stepped up from behind the confines of his bandleaders, proving that he had more good ideas than Gene and Paul knew what to do with, or had the sense to include on Kiss albums. "Rip It Up," "Snow Blind" and the underrated instrumental "Fractured Mirror" are worthy of classic-era Kiss, and his improvement of Hello's "New York Groove" has gone from being a Kiss Army favorite to a city anthem closing in on the ubiquity of Sinatra's "New York, New York." It now feels as beloved outside the Church of Kisstianity as "Rock and Roll All Nite" or "Detroit Rock City." It's covered by everyone from Yo La Tengo to the Roots. It's played over the PA at Citi Field Mets victories and soundtracks COVID-19 recovery campaigns. It's no surprise that Kiss now include in on their compilation albums, claiming it as one of the band's own.

Not long ago, I saw a mother out with her young daughter, a little girl in full Kiss make up. When I expressed my delight, the mother told me they were on their way home from a Kiss-themed birthday party, where all the kids got their faces painted and won Kiss goody bags. It reminded me that Kiss fandom is like Star Wars fandom, or Batman fandom—we read books about it, we dress like them for Halloween, we play along with their various ups and downs. Kiss are often criticized for being more of a business than a band (fair—part of that business is quality control, which Kiss delivers live and on record in droves), but Ace was an undeniable fan. No one could question his love of music or performing. Through much of this year, he was still playing Kiss songs as well as his body would let him, basing his setlist on fan favorites, happy to be anywhere he could play guitar. Thank you Space Ace, forever in a New York Groove.

Kiss, "Comin' Home"

20 Days to Find a Home



I love Kiss Unplugged. In as dazzling a stunt as any they ever pulled, Kiss latched onto the MTV Unplugged trend and not only didn't embarrass themselves, but came up with their best album since Alive II (and at this rate, their last great new album). Taking cues from the best MTV Unplugged appearances, like Nirvana and Alice in Chains, Kiss eschewed a greatest hits set to focus on their songs that sounded best on acoustics. One wouldn't think that any of their songs (save for "Hard Luck Woman," which they don't even play here) would sound best unplugged, but Kiss took the opportunity to show how suprisingly rich and diverse their catalogue is, from the bizarre, tender and creepy "Goin' Blind" to the relaxed "Sure Know Something" to a song from the concept album everyone wanted to forget ("A World Without Heroes", co-written by Bob Ezrin and Lou Reed??). Kiss didn't have much to prove in 1995, but they were still hungry, and they proved that they didn't need fire, blood, flying, grease paint or explosions to put on a great show.

They opened with "Comin' Home", a deep cut from Hotter than Hell, which probably seemed strange at the time but now looks prescient. Kiss were comin' home to their place as being the biggest band in the universe. A few minutes after "Comin' Home," Ace and Peter would be back onstage with Gene and Paul, each singing their own verse of "Rock and Roll All Nite," and over the next two years they'd be back onstage together, headlining the highest-grossing world tour of 1996 and 1997. The underdogs on Kiss Unplugged evaporated, but thankfully we got a great picture of them on "Comin' Home."

Immortal, "Withstand the Fall of Time"

I'm sorry to see that Immortal is breaking up again. Yes, they were silly, and yes they'll probably get back together at some point, but it was fun to know they were always out their, mugging and posing like a black metal Kiss.



Immortal were best appreciated from the stage, freed from the miserable production of their records and the self-seriousness of the genre. Smoke, lights, ridiculous banter and best of all, songs like "Withstand the Fall of Time", from 1999's At the Heart of Winter, defined Immortal in all their kvlt galore. "Epic" may be the most overused word on the internet these days, particularly as an adjective, but "Withstand the Fall of Time" owns it in both the poetic and the entertaining sense.

Kiss, "King of the Night Time World"

For Kim Fowley.

Black Death on The Richard Pryor Show

The earliest known incarnation of both black metal and death metal dates back to 1977, on the first episode of NBC's short-lived (four episodes) The Richard Pryor Show. Black Death's performance emphasizes the band's KISS and psychedelic influences, but also uncovers early death metal's stylistic debt to David Bowie and Funkadelic. I can't seem to find any other footage of the band, though this performance clip, featuring cocaine, a machine gun and Sandra Bernhard, suggests that Black Death lived dangerously. Watch the future of metal come to life in just a few minutes below.

Queen, "The Invisible Man"

Somehow I missed the Ralph Ellison birth centennial at the start of this month, now being celebrated in New York with an exhibit of his personal record collection at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Ellison's jazz affinity runs deep enough to fill at least one book (Living with Music) and more scholarly essays than anyone can count, but the only song I could think of when my 11th grade English teacher assigned him was by Queen.



Queen's 80s work is underrated. Sure, the albums were spotty, but they always were (listen to A Night at the Opera lately?), and Queen's Broadway-rock singles adapted to those heinous 80s rock production trends better than, say, Black Sabbath or KISS. While the music video is hopelessly stuck in the 80s, complete with the band cast as video game characters, the song itself sounds surprisingly industrial for a group of middle-aged guys in 1989, dreaming up EDM while Avicii was still in a womb. If the Freddie Mercury's verses and Brian May's main progression sound familiar, it's because they're ripped from "Ghostbusters" and "Undercover of the Night," respectively. But the kids can't tell. He's the Invisible Man.

KISS, "Love Theme from KISS"

Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo recently revealed that the first song that his band ever played in public was a instrumental deep cut for a band that's usually not appreciated for their instrumentals or their deep cuts.



That's a shame, because "Love Theme from KISS" is a neat little song, and the only one to be credited to all four original members of KISS. It feels improvised but still sounds tight, like a perfect blend of Ace Frehley's creativity and Gene Simmons' leash. The main riff could easily carry a longer song, but in 1974 KISS were still taking risks, and they were right to keep it short. Simmons and Paul Stanley would later decide it was in their own best interest to fire Frehley and Peter Criss, replacing them with better players who did less drugs. But comparing something as organic as this to "Hell or Hallelujah," one can hear who really suffered from those decisions.

KISS, "Detroit Rock City"

The Motor City's influence on rock n' roll is unquestionable. The last 60 years of popular music are unthinkable without Motown, and with The Stooges, MC5, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and even Grand Funk Railroad, Michigan's largest city almost had a monopoly on early '70s hard rock and proto-punk. But when I think of Detroit, the first thing that comes to mind is a group of headbanging New Yorkers singing its praises.



For a band that gets mocked for being so unabashedly commercial, "Detroit Rock City" is a pretty weird song. The album version starts with a prolonged intro of background noise, which is still the only part on Destroyer that I skip over, and it ends with a car crash sounds that is terrorizing for anyone who listens while driving. The song's title, one of the best things about it, gets left out of most of the choruses. "Detroit Rock City" doesn't even get KISS' standard structure (the verse-chorus-verse is twice disrupted by that awesome bridge) or subject matter (quick: name another KISS song that isn't about girls or being in a rock band.) For once, Gene Simmons sounds like he cares about playing bass. Ace Frehley, sometimes thought of as the band's only musician, plays it pretty safe during the solo.

Yet it sounds utterly great all together. KISS hadn't learned to stay in their comfort zone yet, and that innocence rewarded them with a stone cold classic, putting them in a league with Black Sabbath and Queen. But this is still KISS, and of course "Detroit Rock City" is best heard from the stage. I love this performance here, captured at the end of the film of the same name.



Listening to "Detroit Rock City" today, I'm reminded of a Bruce Campbell anecdote from a horror convention. During a Q & A, one attendee asked the lantern-jawed Evil Dead star if he had any advice for an aspiring B movie actor. "You don't aspire to be a B movie actor," said Campbell. "You aspire to be an A movie actor, and if you're lucky you end up in Z movies."

It's no secret that KISS wanted to the biggest band in the world, in particular the Beatles--four distinct rock star personalities, run by the guitarist and bassist, with occasional songwriting from the lead guitarist and a few songs written for the drummer to sing. Like everybody else, they didn't quite get there, and "Detroit Rock City" isn't the Beatles. KISS were trying to be an A band, and maybe they'll never be The Fab Four or The World's Greatest Rock N' Roll Band. But in "Detroit Rock City," they're The Hottest Band in the World, a truly incredible B band.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die: Iron Maiden

If heavy metal had a CV, Iron Maiden shows would go at the very top. Nothing comes closer to packing everything that's great about metal into one sitting than a stage with Eddie and his human counterparts. It's humorous, political and fantastical. Sometimes it feels raw and grandiose at the same time. Iron Maiden are likeable enough to sell out arenas all over the world, yet metal enough to do it with barely any mainstream press or radio. Iron Maiden may never make it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and if they don't, it'll be another feather in their caps.



Iron Maiden doesn't have to be your favorite band, or even your 30th favorite band for one to see that what they do with an audience is breathtaking. None of the musicians, the youngest of whom turns 55 this summer, seem to have been affected by aging, narcotics or world-weariness at all. If anything, they've improved, hitting higher notes and faster rhythms than the ones reached on their classic '80s output. Even on their "hits" tours (the best way to see them, between "new album" tours), they never come across as a nostalgia band, but rather a band that's still getting better at playing their best songs. It's entirely possible that they've spent their entire musical careers preparing for the performance you're about to see on any given night.

In the must-see Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage, Neal Peart tells an interviewer that he will never get tired of playing "Tom Sawyer," because it's always difficult to play, and therefore he always feels good whenever he pulls it off. One can imagine everyone in Iron Maiden relating. They never stop having a blast treating their international audience to workouts like "2 Minutes to Midnight" or "The Number of the Beast," or grinning enthusiastically while running and/or swinging their guitars. On Maiden's newer albums, sometimes they seem to be writing longer and more complicated songs just to rise to the challenge, but onstage they find that challenge in their greatest music, conquering it like the heroes of "Aces High." Songs that you skipped over on Fear of the Dark sound like they should have gone on Best of the Beast. I could sooner imagine Iron Maiden releasing a rap album than phoning in a show.

For a purely metal arena show, it doesn't get any better than Maiden. More metal than AC/DC, less mainstream than Metallica, more musical than KISS, more theatrical than Judas Priest, funnier than Black Sabbath and more agile than anyone this side of Shakira, Iron Maiden are consistently the greatest live metal band in the world. Heard and viewed from any seat in any arena, Bruce Dickinson is an electrifying frontman, punctuating each power metal riff and burst of flame and with vocals that always seem to defy the larynx without forgetting to carry the tunes. If he leaves the stage for a moment, it's for an elaborate set or costume change--you're not getting any extended solos or banter tonight. Even their encore breaks don't last long enough for a bathroom stop. Just hit after hit, with a few engaging quips and explosions in between.

With another band, Maiden's stage, props, pyro and zombie mascot might seem excessive. But part of Iron Maiden's magic is their ability to blend their bells and whistles into the show itself. Their stage sets seem simple, humble even, when fused with the exhilarating hooks of "The Trooper," "Wasted Years" or "Heaven Can Wait." The brutality, steadfastness and musicianship that drive Iron Maiden's best songs deserve the sphinxes, sarcophagi and Union Jacks.

Iron Maiden with a stage is as natural and necessary as Babe Ruth with a bat or Fred Astaire with a dance floor. When people talk about metal that takes rock n' roll to extremities, metal that confronts the worst of life and celebrates the best of it, metal as high art and something to bang your head and flash your horns to, this is what they're talking about.

GWAR, "School's Out"

Alice Cooper's "School's Out" is the unchallenged, definitive end of the school year anthem. Each June, every classic rock station in America puts it in heavy rotation. It's soundtracked enough films, TV shows, commercials and montages to make it possibly the most internationally-heard hard rock song of all-time, up there with "Iron Man" and "Back in Black." It's been on The Muppets Show and two different episodes of The Simpsons. It's also been performed by the casts of Glee, American Idol and even Alvin and the Chipmunks, although the latter diffused the "School's been blown to pieces" lyric with "School's ancient history."

But for the sake of contrarianism, let's celebrate the end of school this month with GWAR's version. 



Even GWAR's biggest fans, like yours truly, will tell you that they're not great songwriters. If KISS put the show first in their career, GWAR made it the only thing that matters in theirs, releasing albums for the fun of it between tours and video collections. Yet it's a blast to hear them romp through "School's Out," by far the catchiest and most reverent thing they've ever recorded. Said reverence doesn't stop them for amending the lyrics to be even more offensive ("We've got no metal detectors!") but like the best covers, they manage to be faithful while putting their own filthy stamp on the original. The music video is also a gem, featuring a suspiciously adult-looking class and a quick tribute to class Eddie Van Halen in the "Hot for Teacher" video. Class dismissed.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die: AC/DC

If AC/DC just sat there onstage while a tape played "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," "T.N.T.," "You Shook Me All Night Long," "Back in Black" and "Highway to Hell," they'd still earn consideration for this list. But as anyone who has seen The Who this century can tell you, playing great songs does not make you a great live band.



40 years into one of the most incredible careers in audio history, AC/DC are still claiming metal's greatest dancer, swinging from the clappers of Hell's Bells, giving us a Whole Lotta Rosie and leaving everything in their wake Thunderstruck. Getting had, getting took and telling folks it's harder than it looks.

By working their way into the 200 Million Sold club without ever deviating from the harder-than-hard rock formula that made them famous, AC/DC makes success look as easy as "The Jack." Then again, nobody has ever played those three chords with the kind of gleeful punch that Angus gives them, not to mention the wildman blues-metal freakout solo that often takes over "Let There Be Rock." The most famous Keith Richards quote about his guitars ("Give me five minutes and I'll make 'em all sound the same") can be applied to Angus Young. But give his admirers four decades, and none of them will sound like him.

No great guitarist this side of Prince has made his instrument such an enthralling part of his performance, without taking away from the playing. Watching Angus Young with a Gibson is akin to watching James Brown with a microphone stand. "I'm a rotten guitar player if I'm standing still," Angus has said, and while I don't believe it, you can tell that he does.

AC/DC does not have many of peers, but even the ones who come closest are put to shame by AC/DC's show. They're not pretending to like each other (Aerosmith, Van Halen,) physically ravaged by their decades of drug abuse (Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe) or dressing up their guitarist to look like the guy they kicked out (KISS, Guns N' Roses). AC/DC prefer to keep their drama beneath them, where it belongs. They continue to set examples for all younger artists, meaning nearly everyone, and meaning nobody who puts on a show like these guys do.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die: Daikaiju

I have a friend in the music business who perhaps goes to more metal shows than anyone I've met. He's at nearly every New York City area metal show, usually near the back working on his phone or taping for his web site, either of which holds more interest to him than seeing Lamb of God for the 30th time. I almost didn't believe him when he told me that a band I'd never heard of had completely blown his mind in a small club, but I knew I'd be catching their next show.



The closest I've come to summarizing the experience, over hours of gushing to various friends, is "surf rock from outer space performed by the Joker's henchmen." But that still doesn't feel accurate. Daikaiju's music has a brutality that most surf rock avoids, plus a hookiness that you don't expect to hear in math rock. What if mimes weren't annoying? What if rockabilly-metal bands knew more than three chords? What if four guys who didn't talk, sing or play anything you knew kept you completely entranced, to the point where when one of them stole your beer and dumped it on his head you applauded?

With a band like KISS, the original Kabuki-rockers, one would almost be surprised if they didn't knock your socks off--songs you love, flying, fire-breathing, blood-spitting and explosions are an almost guaranteed success. But what Daikaiju does is much harder, and I've rarely seen any band, megastars or not, put on such a commanding show. Both theatrical and spontaneous, it makes for one of the most interactive shows you'll ever see. Maybe this time they'll motion the audience onto the stage and play instrumental Rush covers from the audience. Maybe they'll start dancing with you, give away their instruments and somehow keep the songs going. Maybe you'll see them every time they come back to your area and check their web site for updates almost daily. I know I do.

Beth

Five Reasons Why Boston Rocks Harder

With tributes pouring in to Boston in the wake of this week's tragedy, I imagine that more than a few of them will come from or at least cite Boston's rich musical history. I've already seen plenty about the Dropkick Murphys, and I'm sure that some well-meaning rock media figure will mistake Rob Zombie for still being Bostonian or Aersomith for still being rock. Not that anyone needs to--without resorting to "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," here are five bands proving that Boston rocks as hard as any city in the world.

1. Revocation

No band is making better death metal than these guys. Technical enough to land on this year's Summer Slaughter while still writing actual songs, this quartet gives death metal its long overdue thrash-inspired ass-kicking, from their bluesy, Dimebag-worthy soloing to their rapid fire riffs and jackhammer rhythms.



2. The Red Chord

One of the only bands to respect grindcore enough to flesh it out into something with solos, audible lyrics and fully-realized (but succinct) compositions. On their last album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, The Red Chord destroyed genre, song structure and time signature conventions with some of the most energized performances being recorded today, although you might have to see it live to believe it.



3. Converge

It's almost unfair. Every album is a challenging, gut-wrenching and addictive example of the best that punk and metal can do, almost single-handedly keeping punk music off life support for the entire 21st century. Technically, Converge are from Salem, but their rampaging music and ardent integrity is as rooted in Boston hardcore as it is in Bannon, Ballou, Newton and Koller's chemistry.



4. Mission of Burma

Before every punk tried to pass as an intellectual, Mission of Burma made punk rock into something almost pretty, packing a few dozen art-punk tracks into a some addictive albums in the '80s. That first run helped shape the next few decades of art-rockers, and was more than enough to earn them a spot among Boston's musical elite, but then they reunited in the 2000s and set the high standard for rock comebacks with a series of albums at least as strong as the early classics. Eat your hearts out, Strokes.



5. Boston

What can I say? Boston's debut is mainly remembered for selling 17 million copies and being Boston's only good album, but what an album it is. The production has aged poorly enough for cooler bands to goof on its songs, but they still listened, and were better off for it. As late '70s hard rock, it ranks with KISS and Blue Öyster Cult.

People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest: The Very Best of Paul Stanley's On Stage Banter

From a bootleg CD first circulated in 2005. Someone should put this in the MOMA.

Slayer, "Raining Blood"

Heaping praises on Reign in Blood is akin to bringing coals to Newcastle. It's almost ubiquitous on Best of Metal lists, and outside of Metallica's first four albums, it's the only thrash metal release that people who don't usually like metal own. But with Dave Lombardo being replaced over a silly contract dispute (it doesn't whose story about the terms you believe--there's no sane reason that an able Dave Lombardo shouldn't be in this band) this week, I'm going back to one of metal's only flawless tracks.



Several bloggers have already compared Half-Slayer (guitarist Jeff Hanneman is still recovering from an incapacitating spider bite) to KISS without Ace and Peter, but this is actually much worse. For all that the original KISS lineup is, the band doesn't compromise any of their nonexistent integrity by breaking up. Slayer has almost epitomized metal's integrity over the past few decades. Despite a few questionable business decisions, they've been the same straight-ahead, thrash-out-and-leave-the-room force of nature for almost 30 years.

The steady, ominous drumming that introduces "Raining Blood" is as iconic as any sound in metal. Lombardo's pacing isn't to take a breath, but to build suspense, which pays off at the infamous "In the Hall of the Mountain King"-emulating riff ("duh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh-nuh") that kicks in around the :33 mark. When it does, Lombardo steps right back into the war zone, directing the progression that a South Park would later honor as the ultimate hippie buzz-killer.

I once saw a pre-stardom Lamb of God open for Slayer, stepping up to one of metal history's greatest honors and challenges. Shortly before they closed, Lamb of God held a note and let Chris Adler drum the intro to "Raining Blood." "You all know why we're all here," Randy Blythe bellowed. He could have been talking to the crowd, or to any extreme metal fan in the cosmos, but he didn't need to say anything else.

Detroit Rock City

In the tradition of Bill & Ted and Wayne & Garth came Hawk, Lex, Trip and Jam, the four young headbangers at the heart of Detroit Rock City. The "plot" about a team of high school outcasts on their way to their first ever Kiss concert is basically there to sew together a series of improbable hijinks leading up to Greatest Show on Earth, but few movies have ever so thoroughly captured the camaraderie that comes with being a teenager in love with rock music, and most of them aren't this funny. A flop when released in 1999, Detroit Rock City has aged better than nearly every American comedy that outperformed it at the box office at the time (Who watches Meet the Parents or Scary Movie anymore?). Plus, the soundtrack is almost perfect.

Role Models Explains Kiss

You don't need to be a Kiss fan, a delinquent, a larper or a child's mentor to enjoy Role Models, an uproarious 2008 comedy revolving around those characters. Without giving away the uproarious conclusion, here's an NSFW scene wherein Seann William Scott explains the philosophy of The Hottest Band in the World to young Bobb'e J. Thompson with more verve than Gene Simmons does in his autobiography.

Alice Cooper, "We're All (Clones)"

Few things piss off metalheads like the idea that their favorite musicians are hopping trends. KISS fans pretend that their disco song doesn't exist, even though it's one of their biggest hits. Machine Head's nu-metal years, the Page-Coverdale album and "Turbo Lover" are derided by everyone who remembers them. Even when a band jumps between sub-mainstream genres, such as the metalcore incarnation of Cryptopsy or Morbid Angel's industrial album, one would think that they'd have teamed up with Justin Bieber for the amount of bile that gets thrown their way. In the eyes of some headbangers, they may never redeem themselves.

But what if the trend-hopping songs are really great?



By 1980, Alice Cooper had already spent a few years releasing rehab-inspired ballads and rehashes of his early '70s ragers. But he roared back to life with "We're All (Clones)," a shameless jump onto the new wave bandwagon. Alice gets right into character with a piping sythesizer and reserved delivery to match Gary Numan's. Overzealous rock critics might point out that Alice was mocking the too-cool new wavers by aligning himself with clones. Maybe it was his chance to get back at Talking Heads, whose "Psycho Killer" was inspired by Billion Dollar Babies. More likely, he's just having fun being a robot.

Album of the Day: Pantera, Cowboys from Hell

A friend stated yesterday (coincidentally or not, on the 8th anniversary of Dimebag Darrell's murder) that glam-era Pantera was better than the Cowboys in Hell (sic) years. With the band's '80s embarrassments still safely out of print, I'm sure that it's hip to say that they're Pantera's best records. But it's also completely wrong.



The "Cowboys from Hell" title is almost ubiquitous with Pantera now, for good reason. How many modern musicians get honorific nicknames? There isn't anything quite up to the Killer, the Boss or the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. The Cowboys from Hell might be as close as we've gotten. A lesser band wouldn't be able to make that title stick, or even sound cool, but Pantera were experts at the implausible.

22 years on, Cowboys from Hell still gives a charge. It's not nearly Pantera's best record, and it's distractingly frontloaded when it plays out. But in some ways Cowboys captures them at their peak. Phil Anselmo delivers some of the most versatile metal vocals in recorded history here, hitting the high notes like the scion of Rob Halford. He's worlds away for the self-consciously macho growler he'd become. Hearing Vinnie Paul's drumming in 1990 must have been like hearing Eddie Van Halen in 1978--his musicianship would reshape metal, if enough folks could figure out what he was doing, learn it and put their own variation on it. Groove metal has been run into the ground in 2012, with Paul's current band at fault in part, but still no one employs a bass drum and a crash cymbal quite like him. That's why some folks can still sit through 30 seconds of a Hellyeah song.

Every metalhead knows at least two songs from Cowboys from Hell--the title track and "Cemetery Gates." The latter gets played at Dimebag tributes every year, especially on December 8, but even without the boneyard-inspired lyrics it serves as arguably Dime's best memorial. If anyone has an isolated guitar track, please post it in the comments section.



I was surprised to find out today that it's Pantera's longest song, at a short seven minutes (how many Led Zeppelin and Metallica songs are longer than seven minutes? I can't keep track.) If another band has stumbled upon that chorus riff, they probably would have drawn it out for the entire song.

Still, my favorite song from Cowboys from Hell is "Primal Concrete Sledge." Outside of a sole Poison Idea cover, Pantera's punk influences are nearly inaudible. More likely, they raised themselves to the Skynyrd and KISS records that hardcore kids turned up their noses at. Yet some of those faster and shorter concepts seeped through to Pantera, or at least enough for them to unleash blistering songs like this one. Phil Anselmo even calls it "a song of unity" in the video here, thousands of miles away (both musically and graphically) from Operation Ivy. Here's Pantera in 1991 at Monsters of Rock in Moscow, possibly hastening the crumble of the Soviet Union.