Review by SilentScream213 for Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

The Great Southern Trendkill. What the heck does that even mean? Pantera had a penchant for album names that almost made sense, and this was the wackiest. Similarly, the music within is some of their most extreme and eclectic. It’s got easily their heaviest song ever in Suicide Note Pt. 2, whereas Pt. 1 is a calm, slow rocker. Floods is one of their longest songs, almost Progressive in nature and containing one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. The album is surprisingly consistent given the varying styles present here.

That being said, there is still a fair amount of “generic 90’s Groove Metal” here that doesn’t really stand out. Not exactly filler, but songs we’ve all heard many times that don’t offer much to people who aren’t die hard Pantera or Groove Metal fans.

The album has a dark, manic quality to it that probably mirrors the alleged turmoil within the band member’s lives at the time. It sounds like a death throe, and nothing against the underrated Reinventing the Steel, but it would have been a perfect swansong to end their career.