Customer Reviews

Power Metal

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What you think of this album(if you can find it) will depend on if your a hardcore fan or not. As for myself, I love Pantera!! They changed the path of metal with skull crushing albums like VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER, FAR BEYOND DRIVEN, and REINVENTING THE STEEL. But 1988's POWER METAL sounds alot like a mix between early Metallica and Judas Priest(Not that thats a bad thing). Alot of people forget that Pantera were a run of the mill hair metal band in the early 80's with albums like I AM THE NIGHT and METAL MAGIC. POWER METAL is different though, it is the first to feature Phil Anselmo on vocals and the whole band go for a more heavier approach. Dimebag Darrell plays phenomenal guitar work here(As usual) and even sings on the last song P.S.T 88 and sounds alot like early James Hettfield singing. Songs like OVER AND OUT, WE'LL MEET AGAIN, DOWN BELOW, DEATH TRAP, HARD RIDE, and BURNN show that with Phil Anselmo on board there was alot of gelling going on. So I would just have to say to listen to POWER METAL with an open mind if your not a hardcore fan, because it really isn't anything like their later work. It is really interesting and exciting to see where one of the best bands of metal started from, and then to see how far they went. I highly reccomend! ROCK IN PEACE DIME

Pantera

Power Metal (1988)

Review: After a fateful meeting with James Hetfield, Diamond Darrel wanted Pantera to get heavy. "I Am The Night" in '85 was still glam, but wanted to get metal. Getting better. Now after hiring new vocalist Phil Anselmo, Pantera wants to achive an excellent level of metal.

They did it. Despite the corny looking cover picture, this is actually really decent. The previous Pantera albums were heavily glammed up, but here Pantera ditched almost all of that and replaced it with fast and high paced drumming, excellent bass, intricate thrash riffs, and metal vocal shrieks. This isn't Power Metal, no, this is a re-awakening. Phil's vocals here are intense and the shrieks are just right. Phil really had what it takes back then and it shows! Diamond's leads are just killer. Every lead here is definetly worth it alone. Listen to the thrash riffing in the tune, one of my Pantera favorites, "Over and Out". Pantera delivers all out excellent thrash. It's all out menacing. There are a few glam moments here, but are so few and far in between. With tunes like "Over and Out" and "Death Trap", Pantera got their wish to be metal. Even in the final tune "P.S.T. '88", Darrel sings here and had a pretty decent voice.

Overall, Pantera's soul searching came to a near end here. It wasn't till two years later when Pantera reached their pinnacle and finally found themselves. I Highly recommend Power Metal. The only shame is that Pantera ingnored this just because of the silly picture. This is an excellent album!

After three RATT soundalike LPs (Metal Magic, Projects In the Jungle and I Am the Night) Pantera got Phil on vocals and gave us Power Metal. This sounds more like the band we all knew n loved in the 90s than their other 80s efforts but this 88 album still hardly predicts their 90s sound- although at times it does sound like a rough ROUGH blueprint for Cowboys From Hell. Worth buying for hardcore Dimebag fans.

Warning if you absolutely hate hair metal stay away from this album. With that out the way this is a really great album and in my opinion its a mixture of hair metal and heavy metal because this album really only has a few songs that dont sound Cowboys from hell. Very good album and some great guitar work. And for those who like rush theres a lil hint of rush in song 3 haha

This is a great album. Phil has the voice that brought Pantera to what they became in the 1990's and so forth after their split. The music is awesome, the singing is like no other and a well thought out way to end their career as a Hair Metal Band. This is the dawn of the real Cowboys from Hell.
If you're a hair metal fan or a regular Pantera fan, I am absolutely sure you will enjoy this album. Even if you're not a ahir metal fan per say, you will enjoy Pantera's Power Metal. This makes Poison look like a teenie boy pop band. Go ahead and order your copy right now!

This album was the first to have Phil Anselmo on Vocals and also helped them to get recognition in the metal underground at the time which probably explains why Dave Mustaine asked Dimebag to join his band Megadeth a year after the album's release which he declined. A majority of Pantera fans claim that Pantera's true career began with "Cowboys From Hell" when they got "hard". Ok this album may not hold a candle to their 90's albums and may still have traces of the hair metal bug in their systems. But the main improvement on this album is Phil's vocals that sound more agressive and polished than their previous singer Terry Glaze who sang on their previous albums. This album sounds more like a combination of Judas Priest, WASP and a touch of Megadeth than hair metal. There are some of my favourite Pantera songs on this album like rock the World, Over and Out, We'll Meet Again and Death Trap. However if you are only a Pantera beginner I suggest you go along with their 90's albums first.But If you are a huge Pantera fan and also love 80's metal then go out and buy this album (if you can find it)

it's Pantera, what can I say!!! If you love Darrel, Vinnie, Rex and Phil then you'll love the early years of Pantera. Unlike many other bands pantera always did different things on each new album. This album is still guaranteed to make you wanna bang your head and CRANK IT UP!!! Getcha Pull!!!!!

Yes, it's true IMHO, Power Metal IS the LAST GOOD PANTERA ALBUM.

Why??? One word... VOCALS. On this disc(unlike their later efforts i.e Cowboys From Hell etc...) Phil Anselmo shows that he can sing and has a good voice. There's none of the gutteral growling, yelling and other nonsense that infected their later material. I tried (Really, I did)to appreciate Cowboys, Trendkill etc, but the vocals really, really, really just suck.

Let me start by saying that Darrell Abbott was an insanely talented/gifted guitarist. He stood apart from so many metal guitarists in that he had great(FLAWLESS)technique yet still played with exceptional feel and emotion. His leads and fills were natural, liquid, and always perfectly fit what that song needed.

I'm not into the "Hair/Glam" band genre and again,IMHO, Pantera never fit into that mold. Their first 4 albums had some "lighter" moments, but the song writing was always solid, and the musicianship was waaaay above your Motley Crue/Ratt/Poison and numerous others....

Other than Projects in The Jungle(Pantera's 2nd release)I never liked every song on one of their discs. Metal Magic sounded like a demo, and I Am The Night suffered from inconsistent production

I thought Terry was a decent singer(not a lot of range, but he fit), so when Power Metal was released, I was able to listen with an open mind and I liked what I heard.

On Power Metal, Phil is a bit of a chameleon. On the song "Down Below" and the chorus of "We'll Meet Again" he sounds very similar to Terry. On "Hard Ride" he sounds like Gary Barden From MSG(first 2 albums and others) and on "Over and Out" he sounds a bit like James Hetfield.

Those aforementioned songs are really the highlights of this disc, but overall, just listening to Darrell working his sorcery on the guitar makes the whole album a keeper.

Again, this is a good album, but if you're looking for their heavier stuff... it's not here

I really don't know why they tried everything to keep their 80er-Career as a secret. Ok, they looked like transvestites on Speed, had kindergarten-style artwork, humiliating lyrics... but their music wasn't THAT bad. Pantera started in 1983 with the album "Metal Magic", which couldn't be more cliche-like Poser Metal. The thing, that made this band interesting, was their 17year old guitarrist, later known as "Dimebag Darrel", who was able to play solos with exceptional technical abilities for his age. They continued in 1984 with "Projects In the jungle", which featured the same, but musically improved, style of 80s Mainstream Metal, the same ridiculous outfits an the same hilrious artwork. One year later they released "I Am The Night", probably the best of their 80s effords. This album was undoubtably the first one, where Dimebag found his pattented style of guitar playing. The music sounded like a mixture between Judas Priest and good ol' 90s-Pantera, but still with a singer, that would have fitted better to bands, like Ratt and Poison. The vocalist was fired for some reason afterwards, and Anselmo entered. Since the band improved in their development from album to album, and this is like the "real" Pantera-Line Up, one might expect, that this album must be better, than "I Am The Night". No, wrong. It more an development backwards, with sappy, cheesy Mainsteam Hair-Metal Tracks, like "We'll meet again" or "Hard Ride", even using poofy keyboards to make it more "suck". Dime's got away from his experiments on "I am the night" for the biggest part of the album, and follows a more conventional style, somewhere between Judas Priest and Pop Metal. Some songs stand out and feature more of their typical panterastyle shredding and soloing, like "Over And Out", which is really a rough piece of thrash, or "Death Trap", which sounds pretty much like the stuff on "Cowboys..", only with Anselmo trying to imitate the likes of Halford and Tate. "Burrrn" is also a fine speed metal track. The Rest is quite conventional, slightly above average 80ies stuff.
So an album for Fans of american 80ies-Metal ment to storm the charts, with only short displays of what made Pantera so successfull and important just two years later.

Pantera is a band that needs no introduction. They were one of the mainstays of mainstream metal in the nineties, and certainly deserved their success from endless touring and hard work. But there was something amiss, a badly kept secret that they were holding in and denying. Yes, they used to be a hair band. Their first three albums were influenced by everyone from Kiss and Judas Priest to Megadeth. Terry Glaze had a very Vince Neil-esque way of singing. The music was good, but it wasn't enough to be world class. Enter Phil Anselmo who introduced them to even heavier pastures. They weren't "quite there" as in Cowboys from Hell (and their Exhorder influenced groove metal) but they certainly knew how to thrash. Their 1989 album, Power Metal, is not only their most underrated release, its probably one of the most underrated albums of all time.

Why? It has all the hallmarks of the genre that befits the album's name.

Halford-esque screams? Check.

Megadeth meets Testament style thrash breaks? Check.

Awesome double bass drumming? Check.

Shred solos from our sadly departed Dimebag? Check.

In fact, I would dare say, its my favorite album by the band. I am not exaggerating when I say this, its their catchiest and also their fastest until the Great Southern Treadkill.

The music varies from more Priest like moments, to the aforementioned thrash influence. In short, its definitely a power metal album. It begins with "Rock the World" where Anselmo has an eerie similarity with Geoff Tate. "We'll Meet Again" is my favorite soloing from Dimebag, period.
The music can almost serve as Painkiller-era Priest- minus two years. Its no secret that Halford admired Pantera, I would almost speculate that he told the guys in Priest to play like this album, which culminated in their classic opus, Painkiller. The album ends with the silly, but heavy as hell PST 88- a song which features Dimebag on lead vocals.

So why does the band deny this album? Why hasn't it been remastered or reissued? Its hard to say. Certainly, the nineties "image" that was becoming in vogue post Cowboys From Hell is in sharp contrast to the still slightly "glam" image they have on the cover. Ironically during the first tours for Cowboys, they still played a few songs from this album.

I also think that maybe they thought if they revealed this album, people would search out the much more mediocre first three (well I am the Night certainly has its moments).

Whatever the reason, its criminal for them to sit on such good music. If you can find a copy, pick it up immediately, because its one of the greatest power metal albums of all time.

I would say its time for a remaster, reissue and rerelease. With the popularity of power metal influenced music (everything from 3 Inches of Blood to Trivium to Arch Enemy to Dragonforce), its time a label picked this up and did the proper treatment with it.