10 Darkest Rock Albums Of The 90s
4. Vulgar Display of Power - Pantera
When metal was shifting out of the hair metal stylings coming out of California, you couldn't really get much heavier than what Pantera were doing. During a time when thrash legends like Metallica and Megadeth were seeing some of the biggest successes of their career, the Texas swing meets thrash metal that came from Cowboys From Hell made every metalhead a fan overnight, with some of the meanest grooves coming from Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. Once the dust settled, they had one mission statement going into Vulgar Display of Power: we have to be heavier than Cowboys From Hell.
Even though the idea of something being heavier than a song like Heresy feels impossible, this entire project feels like a smack in the face from the minute you put on Mouth For War, with Phil Anselmo shrieking his guts out over Dimebag's riffs. While this is definitely a heavier breed of what many people were used to from metal music, it never lost its hook potential either, with every song being rooted in some of the tightest grooves in the metal world.
As much as a song like Walk might be a little bit abrasive for most metal fans to take in, the riff at the center of it all is the ideal thing that many people getting into metal would want to bang their heads to. It might be accessible for most people, but you're going to come away with this album with a few scars if you're not fully ready for it.