Pantera: Reinventing the Steel (2LP, 20th anniversary edition) [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This 20th anniversary 2LP set adds a fresh 2020 mix by longtime producer Terry Date, plus a second disc of non-album tracks and radio edits. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and went gold within weeks.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 20th anniversary edition
• Terry Date 2020 mix
• Bonus tracks and radio edits
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeves
• Remastered
• Lyrics included
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Some bands mellow with age. Pantera, by their ninth album, went the other way and made a record about being Pantera: loud, proud and dedicated, in the liner notes, to the fans they called their brothers and sisters. The Abbott brothers, Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, produced it themselves with Sterling Winfield at their Chasin Jason Studios in Texas.

"Goddamn Electric" tips its hat to Black Sabbath and Slayer, and Slayer's Kerry King recorded his guest solo in a bathroom after an Ozzfest show in Dallas. "Revolution Is My Name" swaggers, "We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time" is a vow of loyalty to heavy music, and "I'll Cast a Shadow" sizes up the band's own influence. The bonus disc gathers "Avoid the Light" and "Immortally Insane" from the soundtrack era, plus covers of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" and Black Sabbath's "Electric Funeral."

Critics heard a love letter to Judas Priest's British Steel in it, title and all. The anniversary jacket swaps the bonfire photo for a ribbed steel plate, embossed, which is about as close as a record sleeve gets to a handshake you feel for a week.

Also at Kops: more Pantera on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Elektra / Rhino (cat# RCV1 643432), a reissue of the 2000 album.