| Allow me, for anyone unfamiliar with the music of Pantera, to give you a brief rundown of the thoughts passing through Philip Anselmo's head circa 1995: "BOOZEDRUGSMOREDRUGSWHISKYWEEDFIGHTINGTITSMOREWHISKYSLAYER MOREVODKABLACKSABBATHMETALMETALMETALWHISKYFIGHTFIGHTFIGHT WHISKYWEEDFIGHTWHISKYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!! PUNCH! SMACK! STAB! BRAIN HAEMMORAGE! MORE WHISKY!!!" A fairly stable and sociable chap, so you can see. A real corker to bring home and meet your parents. Anselmo fronted Pantera, the possible contenders for America's best metal export of the nineties and the authors of countless classic antisocial anthems ("I'm Broken", "Becoming", "Fucking Hostile", "Cowboys From Hell"), at his most volatile. Now, in his second outing with his stoner-metal supergroup, he's piled on the Zep and roped in the wife. His songs aren't about killing or fucking or fighting anymore. They're about something you'd never have expected him to live long enough to realise: the impermanence and the seedy beauty of life. Ladies and gentlemen: Phil Anselmo has grown old gracefully. And here's your proof. One thing's for certain: "The Drugs" are very much more evident within this record than anything their unashamedly obvious influences Sabbath or Zeppelin have ever produced. Not since Layne Stanley's painfully human strains on Alice In Chains' "Dirt" has any singer sounded quite as smack-soaked, shagged-out and dragged through a hedge backwards as Anselmo does on such tracks as "Lysergik Funeral Procession", "Ghosts Along The Mississippi" or "New Orleans Is A Dying Whore" ("...naked, she sleeps on my floor"). Pantera's irresponsible and destructive air has morphed into a sense of taking it all in your stride: this man has used pain to his advantage. As a result, they have produced some of metal's most evocative moments. "The clearer it gets, the more I'm confused- I'm thinking more about blindness" Anselmo screams on "There's Something On My Side" like a man using the end of a pistol as a confessional. A nation of metalheads swoon for the first time in an eon. Only on "Learn From My Mistake" does it wear a little thin and become a little cliched. And only on "The Man That Follows Hell" do you find an inch of this album sounding even slightly cheesy- these two tracks aside, "A Bustle In Your Hedgerow"'s content is, for the most part, nothing less than astonishing. This is probably due to the range of musicians present on the album: aside two former Pantera members (Anselmo and bass player Rex Brown), members of Corrosion Of Conformity, Eyehategod and Crowbar make up the supergroup to make all other supergroups look, quite simply, lame. This album is the sight of modern metal's strongest forces coming together, growing very impressive beards, getting mightily stoned and playing what comes naturally to them. It could have gone completely wrong. One listen to unavoidably gorgeous, Zep-esque closing track "Landing On The Mountains Of Meggido", or "Where I'm Going"'s deep-rooted melancholic intro, and you know it hasn't. So what can I say, really? One: they're not better or worse than Pantera. They've yet to write an individual song that's as blantant a classic as "Mouth For War" or "Five Minutes Alone", but they've almost certainly written an album that would beat all five Pantera albums in a fight, blindfold and with its hands tied. Three: just because it's more mature doesn't mean it's devoid of beef. Give it a few listens and it'll turn out to be one of the best coctails you've ever drunk, with an unexpected kick that you'll never forget. And three, most importantly: they've done much more than churn out a Sabbath tribute album, so don't for one second suspect Down of gravedigging because they've run out of ideas. While Pantera may have been accused (embarrasingly) of spawning the likes of Slipknot, Down have taken a few steps back to discover Heavy Metal's sordid roots, and in doing so, taken a very significant step forward. It's the most futuristic album of the year at the same time as being the album Black Sabbath should have made. Conclusion? I diggeth. |
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| Artist: Down Album: II- A Bustle in your hedgerow Released: April 2002 Slices of pie: 9 |