SilentScream213 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.

UMUR "The Great Southern Trendkill" is the 8th full-length studio album by US groove metal act Pantera. The album was released through East West Records in May 1996. It´s the successor to "Far Beyond Driven" from 1994, which proved to be a great commercial success for the band, but during the tour supporting the album, things began to change between the members of the band. Lead vocalist Phil Anselmo started acting strange and distancing himself from the rest of the band, and his performances also started to suffer. Anselmo suffered from a back injury (sustained because of his energetic live performances through many years), and had begun self-medicating with alcohol, but soon turned to heroin...and that´s when things really went south. Animosity and resentment grew between the four members of the band, to a point where the material for "The Great Southern Trendkill" were recorded at two seperate studios. The instrumental part of the music was recorded in Dallas, Texas, while Anselmo recorded his vocals at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Stylistically "The Great Southern Trendkill" also comes off a bit disjointed and it´s definitely Pantera´s most experimental album. The core style is still groove metal, featuring the trademark heavy blues based riffs by Dimebag Darrell. The heavy grooves are however only a part of the sound on "The Great Southern Trendkill", which also features more experimental riff types, adventurous guitar solos, acoustic parts, and a wide range of raw, screaming, and aggressive vocals. Anselmo also delivers some clean vocals on the album, so overall "The Great Southern Trendkill" is a varied release.

"War Nerve", "Drag the Waters" (the only track off the album which was made into a music video), "13 Steps to Nowhere", "Living Through Me (Hell's Wrath)", "(Reprise) Sandblasted Skin", and "The Underground in America" are all groove laden and riff heavy aggressive tracks, while both the opening title track and "Suicide Note, Part II" are faster paced and more experimental in nature, featuring crazy screaming vocals. The album also features a ballad type track in "Suicide Note, Part I" (which wouldn´t have felt wrong if it was placed on the predominantly acoustic "Jar of Flies (1994)" EP by Alice in Chains) and two dark power ballads in "10's" and "Floods". I´m not sure power ballad is the best way to describe the two latter, as they are quite twisted and dark, but it´s the closest to a generic description I can find.

"The Great Southern Trendkill" features a powerful and heavy sound production, which suits the material perfectly, and paired with the strong musicianship, and the adventurous songwriting, the album is a high quality release. It did not sell the numbers that "Far Beyond Driven (1994)" did, and did not feature as many "hits" as the predecessor, but to my ears it´s probably the stronger of the two. It definitely doesn´t show a band who have lost their nerve or will to experiment with their sound, and it ends up being both a weakness and a strength. It´s a weakness because "The Great Southern Trendkill" is not a particularly accessible album nor is it as catchy as much of the material on the last three releases, and at times it does feel a bit incoherrent, but it´s a strength because Pantera still sound hungry, aggressive, and playful. It´s certainly a bold release at this point in their career. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

martindavey87 How did one of the most influential metal bands of the 90’s (and of all time?) turn out to be so disappointing? I mean, like a lot of metalheads, I’ve always held Pantera in such high regard, but it wasn’t until I properly took the time to listen to their albums that I found myself not really enjoying a lot of it.

The groundbreaking ‘Cowboys From Hell’ and ‘Vulgar Display of Power’ feature some of metals most beloved songs, but I find are also brimming with filler material. ‘Far Beyond Driven’ even made it to the number one spot in the Billboard charts! How??? That album, in my eyes, saw a huge decline from its predessors! And how did they follow that up? With an even more lacklustre mess of an album; ‘The Great Southern Trendkill’.

There’s no denying that the band had been getting progressively heavier with each release, and ‘Trendkill’ is by far their heaviest album to date, but it’s just so chaotic and cluttered that I truly struggle with it. Phil Anselmo’s once-impressive vocals, blending screaming, shouting, singing and all sorts, is just one incomprehensible death metal growly shout after another. And the guitars, once groove-laden and full of pumping, memorable riffs, now sound like generic, throwaway leftovers. Messy and uninspired, the band was at odds when making this album, with the music and vocals being recorded in completely separate locations, and it shows.

The production sounds rather dated as well. While the music’s sheer intensity and brutality make it heavy, the sound itself is rather weak and tinny, struggling to live up to the standards of the bands previous releases.

If I was forced to pick out any highlights, ‘Living Through Me (Hell’s Wrath)’ and ‘Suicide Note Pt. 1’ are probably the best two songs. The title track is alright too. But to be honest though, I’m just really not into this album, and struggling to really see what all the hype was about regarding Pantera.

Warthur Compared to the subgenre-defining Cowboys From Hell and the staggeringly aggressive Vulgar Display of Power, I just can't quite get behind The Great Southern Trendkill. Oh, sure, it's another aggressive beast of an album, but it tries too hard at it; whereas Vulgar Display of Power was a disturbingly believable offering, here Anselmo's layered vocals feel a bit too overplayed - it seems more like cartoonish posturing than a genuine threat.

The involvement of Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt fame on backing vocals kind of says it all really - I've never found his contributions to be especially musically interesting, and the decision to include him feels like a dose of bad judgement on the part of Pantera themselves - the same sort of slip in aesthetic vision which makes this less compelling than it could be. Perhaps you can put some of the blame on Anselmo's heroin addiction, and the way the tensions it created in the band seeped through into the recording process - once a band member's issues have gotten bad enough that they can't even work in the same studio as the rest of the band, you inevitably aren't going to have as tight and as effective a collaboration as you might otherwise.

Necrotica If there's anything I'd say right off the bat, it's that I've never heard a record quite like The Great Southern Trendkill.

Ever since 1990, Pantera had been working to perfect the groove metal sound, making it sound angrier and heavier with each passing album. Forsaking their glam metal roots and finding their place in the metal landscape, they followed in the footsteps of Metallica's initial 80s thrash sound (primarily because they were dismayed at the band's self-titled 1991 record) and made things heavier and more distorted... and of course groovier. No matter if you were/are a fan of the band or not, there should at least be respect for their tight unified sound with classics like Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display of Power. What I mean by that is that the band had a specific focus; they knew exactly what they set out to do: to make disgustingly heavy and pummeling metal music that was aggressive as hell. However, things changed by the time 1995 came around; singer Phil Anselmo started taking heroin and proceeded to distance himself away from the other band members. The chemistry of the band was being altered, and it seemed fitting that they'd take some interesting risks with The Great Southern Trendkill; well, the result still wasn't anything like I thought it'd be.

The music is not only possibly their angriest, but easily the most grim and downright hellish. Fast thrash/groove metal collides with downtrodden acoustic numbers and unusually sludgy guitar work; whether it's the raging anti-tabloid anthem "War Nerve" or the haunting power ballads "10's" and "Floods," there's a distinctly hollow vibe throughout the entire experience. Obviously Pantera's darker side is nothing new; Vulgar Display of Power gave us "Hollow," and Cowboys From Hell gave us songs like "Cemetery Gates" and "The Sleep." Far Beyond Driven certainly had its moments as well, but this album marks the first time that almost the entire record is dominated by such a depressing atmosphere. That's not to say that there aren't the typical Pantera staples, however; for instance, the title track is a pummeling opener that benefits from an extended Dimebag solo and one of Anal Cunt vocalist Seth Putnam's guest screaming performances. This song and the two that come after it form a great opening punch that mixes varied songwriting with the band's typically angry attitude. Performance-wise, the rhythm-section musicians have considerably less time to shine; Dimebag and Phil pretty much run the show as bassist Rex Brown and drummer Vinnie Paul just seem to be the backbone of the experience and not much more. It's really a shame because Rex and Vinnie brought out a lot of creativity in previous records, particularly with Vinnie's rapid fills during the band's faster numbers. When you get down to it, Phil's vocals and the overall atmosphere are really what make this whole thing so fascinating.

This is one of those albums in which the "bigger picture" matters a great deal in how effective it is. When you look at the album's individual parts like the members' performances or specific songs, the experience does seem a bit lackluster compared to previous records. However, it's the way everything's presented as one collective experience that elevates The Great Southern Trendkill a great deal. The way sullen vulnerability and raw anger collide with each other makes for an experience unlike any I've ever heard, and while there are filler tracks like the generic thrasher "Living Through Me" or the plodding groove of "13 Steps to Nowhere," the flaws ironically make the record even more effective. Just as the status of the band was unstable and beginning to fall apart, it's expected that an album based around this fact would indeed be rough around the edges. But aside from that, let's talk about those two other things that makes it so memorable: that grim atmosphere and the vocals. Between the hollow acoustic numbers like "Floods" and "Suicide Note Pt. 1," as well a sludgier number like "10's," it's clear that some odd experimentation was done to the Pantera sound this time around. These songs are arguably more effective than the aggressive tracks, particularly because of Phil's vocal diversity. For the longest time, Pantera fans associated Phil's style as dominated primarily by macho posturing and extremely frequent screams; while these traits definitely get featured in this album as well, his more tender and depressing moments displayed in the ballads prove him (and the band, for that matter) as more than just one-dimensional. On "Suicide Note Pt. 1," for instance, he avoids yelling or screaming and instead opts for a low, brooding vocal performance that depicts the sorrow of the song's lyrics. And that's perhaps what's so great about this record: the atmosphere, as well as the separated nature of the band by this point, created a completely unique Pantera album that combined the group's past fury with an extremely grim atmosphere. As I said before though, this record is best listened to as an entire experience rather than for its individual songs. It truly is a fascinating portrait of a band broken by inner tensions.

(Originally published on Sputnikmusic)