Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Following the discovery of Cowboys From Hell some two years prior, I awaited the arrival of Pantera's sophomore release with a level of excited anticipation that damn near caused palpitations to my teenage heart.  I guess if they had released Vulgar... and it was an absolute turkey I would have still loved it, such was my admiration for the band at this stage.  Thankfully, there was no need for me to gloss over any of the album when it came out as it was near perfect to my ears back then.  We are of course some 30 years on from the release first landing in my hands and this revisit as part of my Groove Metal Clan Challenge certainly tested whether it was just pure nostalgia that would maintain the high score for Vulgar... or if the quality that I was so enamoured with in 1992 (at the tender age of 16) was still as obvious to this day.

The record starts strongly.  There is no fucking around here as we get straight into things with the opening track.  Mouth For War (previously released as a single) offers no intro and sets expectations immediately on the intensity levels that all of us had come to expect from the debut offering.  Indeed the whole first half of the record (first five tracks at least) lands hit after hit as we cycle through the anthemic Walk and of course the ultimate middle finger raised soundtrack, Fucking Hostile.  The taught and calculating This Love gives early promise of the darker direction the band were to take two years later.

Being honest.  Parking any nostalgia for now.  The back half of Vulgar... suffers badly from filler.  The dip in quality from track six onwards is far too obvious nowadays to my ears that it would be criminal to overlook.  The rapping on No Good (Attack the Radical) and the mish mash structure of Live in a Hole alone are enough to strip a whole star of the end rating here.  It sounds very much like Pantera ran out of those big riffs very quickly here and instead had to take whatever was on the cutting room floor into full production.  Even though the quality of DImebag's solos never drop quite as much as the overall songwriting does, they are not enough to keep the entertianment value going on the album.  Listening back now it feels like I listened to the first part of the record back in 1992 and fell in love with that so much that I went into some form of denial on the rest of the record.  With the possible exception of By Demons Be Driven, I could easily leave Vulgar... alone after the first five tracks on any future revisits.