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Reinventing the Steel

 
Album Review: Reinventing the Steel
 

  • Artist: Pantera
  • Rating: StarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: March 14, 2000
  • Type: Lyrics are included with the album, Contains explicit content
  • Genre: Rock

Review

Where The Great Southern Trendkill experimented with slower, moodier pieces, Reinventing the Steel finds Pantera sticking to the pulverizing basics of their sound, with the first down-tempo, nondistorted guitar part appearing on the next-to-last track, "It Makes Them Disappear," and vanishing about 15 seconds into the song. In the tradition of the group's best albums, Reinventing the Steel is a nonstop assault on the senses, offering no respite from the intensity until the album has stopped playing. Yet somehow, it comes off as a cut below their best albums; perhaps it's that the band's sound lacks the sense of freshness that sparked Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power, and Far Beyond Driven, or perhaps it's simply good in a very predictable way (contrary to its title). Yet even if Pantera is firmly entrenched in a signature sound, it's a distinctive, highly effective signature sound that most of the band's fans don't want to hear changed; plus, Dimebag Darrell is still one of the most inventive guitar players in heavy metal. The bottom line is that the way you feel about Reinventing the Steel will likely depend on whether you object to more of the same; if not, then the lean focus of its attack -- the most concise, actually, since Vulgar Display -- will make it more than worthwhile. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Hell Bound Pantera Pantera (2:40)
Goddamn Electric Pantera Pantera (4:56)
Yesterday Don't Mean Shit Pantera Pantera (4:19)
You've Got to Belong to It Pantera Pantera (4:13)
Revolution Is My Name Pantera Pantera (5:15)
Death Rattle Pantera Pantera (3:17)
We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time Pantera Pantera (3:44)
Up Lift Pantera Pantera (3:45)
It Makes Them Disappear Pantera Pantera (6:21)
I'll Cast a Shadow Pantera Pantera (7:54)

Credits

Pantera (Arranger), Pantera (Main Performer), Vinnie Paul (Drums), Vinnie Paul (Producer), Howie Weinberg (Mastering), Phil Anselmo (Vocals), Eric Altenburger (Retouching), Sterling Winfield (Producer), Roger Lian (Digital Editing), Roger Lian (Sequencing), Rex Brown (Bass), Grady Champion (Bass), Grady Champion (Guitar), Dimebag Darrell (Guitar), Dimebag Darrell (Producer)
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Wikipedia: Reinventing the Steel
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Reinventing the Steel
Reinventing the Steel cover
Studio album by Pantera
Released March 14, 2000 (2000-03-14)
Recorded 1999–2000
Genre Groove metal
Length 43:50
Label East West
Producer Dimebag Darrell, Vinnie Paul, Sterling Winfield
Professional reviews
Pantera chronology
Official Live: 101 Proof
(1997)
Reinventing the Steel
(2000)
The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits!
(2003)

Reinventing the Steel is the ninth and final studio album by heavy metal band Pantera. It was released through East West Records, on March 14, 2000.

Contents

Album information

It reached #4 on the Billboard Top 200 charts, #8 on the Top Canadian Albums chart, and #5 on the Top Internet Albums chart. The album's fifth track, "Revolution Is My Name", reached #28 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks.

In Australia a two disc Tour Edition of the album was released. The first disc consists of the album proper, while the second is an unofficial hits compilation. This is now a collector's item.

Reinventing the Steel contains lyrics mostly about the band itself, as on "We'll Grind that Axe for a Long Time" (where the band members tell about how they've kept it "true" throughout the years, while many of their peers "sucked up for the fame") and "I'll Cast a Shadow" (about Pantera's influence on the genre). There are also songs about their fans, like "Goddamn Electric" and "You've Got to Belong To It." The band members dedicated Reinventing the Steel to their fans, whom they viewed as their brothers and sisters.

An edited version of the song "Death Rattle" was used on an episode of Spongebob Squarepants titled "Pre-Hibernation Week." This track was also featured on SpongeBob SquarePants: Original Theme Highlights released August 14, 2001.

Reception

  • Rolling Stone (5/25/00, p.73) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "Metal-revivalist....relying on the genre's primal elements of rage and analog noise...chopped up with squealing dissonance....brutal enough to please underground purists and familiar enough for weekend headbangers."
  • Entertainment Weekly (3/24/00, p.102) - "...resumes their scorched-earth policy with vigor....dropping aural anvils [along] with a dash of inventiveness..." - Rating: B+
  • Q magazine (6/00, p.112) - 3 stars out of 5 - "Pantera's attempt to upgrade [Judas Priest's] British Steel-era pure metal spirit....unequivocal heavy metalness."
  • Alternative Press (7/00, pp.108–9) - 5 out of 5 - "An undiluted, unvarnished slab of riffs paying distinct homage to Judas Priest's British Steel, and not just in a titular sense, but in basic song construction."
  • CMJ (4/3/00, p.32) - "Crammed with everything they've used to revolutionize metal....so old-school it could have been easily made in between the quartet's back-to-back classics."
  • NME (4/15/00, p.34) - 6 out of 10 - "An unfashionably old-school metal album....it's Pantera's bid to herald the rebirth of bullet-belt, cut-off denim metal....It's a solid album, oozing drunk-as-hell metal spirit."

Track listing

  • All tracks by Pantera unless noted otherwise.
  1. "Hellbound" – 2:41
  2. "Goddamn Electric" – 4:58
  3. "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" – 4:19
  4. "You've Got to Belong to It" – 4:13
  5. "Revolution Is My Name" – 5:19
  6. "Death Rattle" – 3:17
  7. "We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time" – 3:44
  8. "Uplift" – 3:45
  9. "It Makes Them Disappear" – 6:22
  10. "I'll Cast a Shadow" – 5:22

Credits

Charting positions

Album

Year Chart Position
2000 The Billboard 200 4
2000 Top Internet Albums 5

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
2000 "Revolution Is My Name" Mainstream Rock Tracks 28

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Album Review. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Reinventing the Steel" Read more