The first Pantera album to capture the sound most people associate with the band today was actually the group’s fifth record, Cowboys from Hell, which came out on July 24, 1990. Inspired by a love for Metallica and classic Judas Priest, guitarist Dimebag Darrell (then known as Diamond Darrell) and drummer Vinnie Paul strived to achieve a sound that cut with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel and the destructive power of a chainsaw. But the album wouldn’t have been nearly as heavy and scathing if vocalist Philip Anselmo hadn’t insisted on bringing a hardcore mentality and an ultra-heavy thrash perspective into the band. “I showed them the f--king path, man,” Anselmo told me in 2010. "It would be a lie to say anything different. Dimebag came over to the first house I lived in in Texas in e...
