Cowboys from Hell

For a lot of people, the first four Pantera albums simply do not exist. In fact, for a long time I didn’t even know they released any music before Cowboys from Hell because none of those first four records are on any streaming services (at least in my part of the world, not sure how it is elsewhere) so when I first dove into entry level metal I was stuck with Cowboys and beyond.

And I confess that Cowboys is really the only one from that later era that I would ever bother listening to anymore, especially after discovering I Am the Night (1985) and Power Metal (1988). Because let’s be honest, Pantera continued to sound more and more generic with each release throughout the 90s, setting the gold standard for the tough guy groove metal that dominated the early 2000s and overshadowed all of the good extreme metal (no, Pantera isn’t extreme metal) that was coming out around the same time.

And while I don’t find Cowboys from Hell anywhere near as enjoyable as I did when i was fifteen or sixteen, I think it still holds up as a solid metal album with a lot of thrash-adjacency and some really impressive guitar work. Despite its flaws I think the strong points of this album still make it a worthwhile listen.

For starters, Phil Anselmo hadn’t yet blown out his vocal cords at this point and was still sporting an impressive falsetto at the time. His normal gruff voice is utilized pretty often and it’s definitely not my favorite style but when he reaches back for the high notes it adds some genuine energy and excitement to songs that would have otherwise been somewhat average. ‘Psycho Holiday’ and ‘Shattered’ are perfect examples of tracks that are elevated just due to Phil’s excellent range on this album.

Dimebag Darrell’s guitar work is another huge thing Pantera have going for them; not just on this album but throughout their catalogue. Love him or hate him, the dude is genuinely talented and wrote some incredible pieces of music for Cowboys from Hell. Obviously everyone knows the razor sharp, attitude laden title track opener and the surprisingly professional and delicate ballad ‘Cemetary Gates’ (which features some incredible guitar solos) but people tend to overlook the other great tracks from this album because of the hits. ‘Heresy’ features an absolutely killer main riff which utilizes a lot of the same ingredients as the average thrash band while ‘Domination’ unleashes some welcome fury and aggression onto an already macho album.

The main drawbacks with Cowboys from Hell for me come with the production, which nowadays bothers me more than ever. The mix resembles a coarse, rough exterior which is greedily hiding the juiciness of the guitars within, refusing to let it break out of its tough shell and hampering the impact as well as sound quality. This makes the squealing guitars sound like nails on a chalkboard at times; it just doesn’t work with the dry sound of the instruments. The mix also seems to be a bit inconsistent, with some songs sounding much “better” produced than others; or at least, much clearer and louder. This up-and-down nature of the album absolutely drives me insane and is just another part of an otherwise solid album that I can’t fully accept.

There’s also a fair bit of filler on Cowboys, particularly in the second half of the album. There’s no completely awful songs, as Pantera would save those for their next couple of albums, but tracks like ‘Clash with Reality’ and ‘The Sleep’ are simply not up to par with the album’s highlights. That’s not enough for me to totally discredit Cowboys though, as I can still appreciate this album and what it meant for metal in the mainstream, as well as being one of my earliest go-to choices when delving into the metal scene. It’s not a perfect album by any means but Cowboys from Hell certainly doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the other garbage Pantera have released. Shame, it’s all downhill from here.