After spending the first part of their career playing hair metal and hard rock, Pantera hardened their sound in 1990 in order to appeal to heavy and thrash metal fans with their excellent Cowboys from Hell. The album was followed by a decade completely dedicated to making the heaviest metal possible, starting with the riotous Vulgar Display of Power (1992), Far Beyond Driven (1994). The brutal The Great Southern Trendkill (1996) made a name for groove metal and ultimately led to this Reinventing the Steel (2000) which was released in the midst of the nu-metal period. With this record, the group aspired to reintroduce their fans to the true sound of metal as it should played. An ambitious task.
We didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but the group disbanded after the release of this album. With hindsight, their separation appears more of an inevitability: In addition to the group’s internal issues and, unless they desired to forever continue doing the same thing, the band weren’t really going anywhere. While Reinventing the Steel contained its fair share of classics (Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit, Revolution Is My Name, Death Rattle, and the fantastic final double-track It Makes Them Disappear/I’ll Cast a Shadow), some weaker tracks showed that the band was finding it hard to renew themselves and inspiration was on its last legs. Ultra-loyal fans nevertheless praised the album. For its 20th anniversary, Rhino/Elektra have released this triple-disc edition whose primary attraction is the Terry Date mix, the producer of Pantera’s masterpieces but not this album when it was made twenty years ago. His version has reinvented the album (sorry) to say the least. Bright, strong and dynamic, it far surpasses the original version.
The distinction between the two is clear when listening to the second CD, the original mix (by Sterling Winfield and the Abott brothers) where not even a serious remastering is a match for Date’s mastery. Several “radio edit” versions are also included. The third, much more enjoyable disc, offers an instrumental rough mix of the album (which sounds great and would be incredible for karaoke nights) as well as five previously unavailable tracks that hardcore fans will no doubt already possess: Avoid the Light and Immortally Insane which feature in the original soundtracks to (Dracula 2000, Heavy Metal 2000 and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) while Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent), Hole in the Sky and Electric Funeral (Black Sabbath) have for a long time been available on various tribute albums. And there we have it: Terry Date’s remixing of Reinventing the Steel is the primary reason we return to this testament Pantera record along with heartfelt thoughts for Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul who left us in 2004 and 2018 to join the celestial jam up above. © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz