Pantera, "Hellbound"

"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.

Song of the Day: Sepultura, "Ratamhatta"

Some of the best metal bloggers are freaking out this week over the image of Behemoth with producer Ross Robinson that's making it's way through the interwebs. Nothing has been officially announced yet, but of course people are assuming that this means one of the best black metal bands in the world is letting the guy who produced Korn, Limp Bizkit and Vanilla Ice's nu metal record take the reigns. But even if Robinson actually is producing the next Behemoth record, there's no need to raise a stink. Behemoth have been a great band for many years and they've earned your faith in them to make good music.

Not only that, Robinson has produced albums for more good music than you remember, including At the Drive-In, Blood Brothers and the Cure. But his best work is on Roots, Sepultura's last good album.



With every release, Sepultura gets more tribal and less metal, probably to distract listeners from the fact that they no longer have Max or Igor Cavalera. But Roots was a perfect blend of Sepultura's groove metal stomp and tropicália rhythms. I love the heavy percussion of "Ratamhatta," plus the call and response verses with Max Cavalera and Brazilian music hero (and future Oscar nominee, for Rio) Carlinhos Brown. Listen closely to also hear appearances from Mike Patton and a didgeridoo.

Artists like Paul Simon, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel get lauded for dressing rock music in worldbeat rhythms and for giving traditionally non-Western music an international audience. I'd argue that with Roots and "Ratamhatta," Sepultura and Ross Robinson deserve as much acclaim as any of them.

Album of the Day: Rage Against the Machine, The Battle of Los Angeles

"Check this out, you'll like this."

I'm trying to organize a community meeting and my co-worker is holding up a little red listening device with some white ear buds.

"It's a German guy called Jan Delay. You'll like this song, it's kind of funky. It's called 'Rave Against the Machine.'"

I mishear her. "'Rage Against the Machine,' like the band?"

"That's a band?"



I ended up burning her a data disc with Rage's three original albums and their single "No Shelter." The debut gets all the credit as the groundbreaker, and Evil Empire has the biggest hits, but my favorite is The Battle of Los Angeles. The songs are more concise than Rage's, more consistent than Evil Empire's and more diverse than either album's.

Rage had already famously covered Bruce Springsteen, but now they were writing songs that sounded like him ("Born of a Broken Man.") Tom Morello's effects are at their most developed, transforming his guitar into a mouth organ on "Guerilla Radio" and a scratch routine on "Mic Check." Rage's liner notes bore messages like "All sounds made by guitar, bass, drums and vocals," but this was the first time that they really needed to remind us.

Released the same year that Korn and Limp Bizkit had number one records, Rage seemed like they were raging against rap-rock as much as anything else. Not by offering an alternative, but by showing how it was really done, which was in hindsight a much bigger challenge. Zack de la Rocha's fiery bark and off-kilter rhythm reminds me of both Bob Dylan and Chuck D. I remember one review comparing The Battle of Los Angeles to "Led Zeppelin covering It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back," and I can't think of a better comparison.

Here they are in a video filmed by Michael Moore for "Sleep Now in the Fire," in front of the New York Stock Exchange, 11 years before Occupy Wall Street.



This was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award, but lost to Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff," featuring Pauly Shore.

The Battle of Los Angeles closes with the absurdly underrated "War Within a Breath," making Rage one of the only great bands to go out at their peak. Sometimes I want more--it's sad to think that they stopped recording music in the year 2000, on the cusp of eight years of a Bush Administration. But on The Battle of Los Angeles, there's enough Rage to go on for decades in this mortal coil.