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Pantera - Far Beyond Driven Audio CD

A fair review of the Pantera "Far Beyond Driven" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Pantera reviews here, or go back to the Pantera tabs.

Pantera Band: Pantera
Title: Far Beyond Driven
Rating:
Release Date: 1994-03-22
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Strength Beyond Strength 2: Becoming 3: 5 Minutes Alone 4: I'm Broken 5: Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills 6: Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks 7: Slaughtered 8: 25 Years 9: Shedding Skin 10: Use My Third Arm 11: Throes of Rejection 12: Planet Caravan

Classic.
From the pure brutality of "Slaughtered" to the mellow Black Sabbath cover, this CD never takes a breather. Rarely do you hear an album this punishing that is still coherent and well put together. At times Far Beyond Driven reaches into thrash metal, but stays rooted soundly in the groove metal that Pantera excelled at.


Best Pantera album ever -- one of the best metal albums
Almost 15 yrs later, it still sounds riveting and fresh. I bought a copy of this album when it first came out in 94. This truly is an uncompromising masterpiece in hardcore heavy metal. The music has enormous amount of aggression, rhythmic energy, power and anger, all wrapped up in a great sound editing/mastering/overall production. The musicianship shown by each member and the band as a whole is utterly tremendous and puts to shame other hardcore metal bands that are less disciplined in execution. Sloppiness plaguing in hardcore metal could no longer be an excuse after Pantera.


Good, but not Great
The band does a good job of varying tempos throughout, so the album rarely seems to drag on in monotony. The follow up to Pantera's masterpiece, Vulgar Display of Power, this begins with the thrash and groove inspired "Strength Beyond Strength" and after the first three tracks the album seems a bit heavier than its predecessor. Phil Anselmo also tries some new things with his vocals, which have taken on a somewhat more brutal tone. Unlike the higher screams from their earlier albums, and the raspy yell from Vulgar, he occasionally (on "Slaughtered," for example) uses a lower growl, which borders on a more extreme metal vocal.

While the album certainly isn't weak, it does lack that certain something that they achieved on Vulgar, where almost all of the tracks were noteworthy. On this release we find a number of strong tracks, but no real killer material that leaves you wanting more. The grooves aren't as strong as they're capable of, and the material, overall, is just not as amazing as I expect having heard on Vulgar what the band can do. Good. . . but not a great one.


Good but not great
Strength Beyond Strength, 5 Minutes Alone, and Becoming are some of Pantera's best work. The first four songs of this release are classic relentless Pantera. If this is true then why do I give it only 3 stars? Probably because after the opening 4 songs, I don't find anything else on this album that memorable, with the exception of their cover of Sabbath's Planet Caravan. I can put in Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display and listen all of the way threw over and over, however, midway through this album I grow a but tired and generally take it out to listen to something else. It's not that those songs are necessarily bad, just not as memorable as previous Pantera tunes. Of course if your a Pantera fan, this album is well worth buying, but if you don't own any of their albums start with Vulgar Display Of Power and Cowboys From Hell.


At the top of their game.
I still get this out regularly during my travels and I still get the same feeling I did when I first heard it. I have been a Pantera fan for years and when I bought this it did not leave my cd player for at least a month. The evolution of Pantera is evident here. There couldn't have been a better bridge between the "Vulgar Display" and "Trendkill" records. The only band to ever give me the goose bumppy shivers upon first hearing them other than Pantera is Freaklabel. If you like these guys you will LOVE Freaklabel's Monolith for sure!.


You can see a complete list of all Pantera discography, or go back to the Pantera tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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