Pantera - Far Beyond Driven
1994 East/West

Track Listing:
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

Line-Up:
Vocals:  Phil Anselmo
Guitar:  Dimebag Darrell
Bass:  Rex
Drums:  Vinnie Paul

Website:  www.officialpantera.com

Horatio's Rating:  A
Overall Rating:  A

Also be sure to read:
Pantera - Metal Magic by Horatio
Pantera - Power Metal by Horatio
Pantera - Projects In The Jungle by Horatio

Horatio's Review:
This is the equivalent of an impossible review.  How can one man do justice for an album of such timeless, downright obscene over the top rudeness, that everything else seems to pale in comparison to?  I once tried for the old KITF many moons ago, but it never saw the light of day, so here we go again.  Nothing defines 90's metal greater than this slab of comedy, right down to the music and lyrics, which could be the most insane and funniest ever put to disc and toilet paper.  It had been on the horizon however, 1992's 'Vulgar Display Of Power' a far cry from the band's early days, with a sub-thrash direction, which actually was far more tedious than anything they had previously done.  Nobody alive can tell me that the second half of 'Vulgar Display' has any redeeming value.  Furthermore it reinforced the belief that metal had to be brutal to be considered metal at all, something Pantera took to the mainstream.  Face it, in 1994 Pantera were the face of heavy metal in the US.  It's almost incomprehensible that 'Far Beyond Driven' reached number one.  That's proof of how big these dudes once were.

Big Phil must have been going through some personal hell.  His tortured laments fill the album, making for funnier reading this side of an issue of Metal Maniacs.  Somewhere along the lines he went off the rails, evolving from hard rock poster boy to aggro metal Joe 101, fine tuning the persona he still carries to this day.  Thrasher to start, as always, in which Phil goes from 'Strength Beyond Strength' as a wayward dope dealer, telling us 'fuck your college dream' with 'pipe dreams buttfucked'.  This really spoke to me in '95.  The president then pulls out 'a stump' on live TV, to the excruciatingly slow sludge riffs that infiltrate every Pantera thrasher.  All Phil wants is it legalized, a simple process?  Could this review exceed ten thousand words?  Few riffs top 'Five Minutes Alone' for brute force, while 'Good Friends And A Bottle Of Pills' is lyrically on par with the best of Chris Barnes.  'I fucked your girlfriend last night.....smacked her ass.....dripped her ass......living out some brash fantasy.......ahhhhhhfuckkkkkk!!!.....im serving too many masters!!.....and you'd do it too, you're that kind of dude...'  What's going on here Phil?  Inform me.  I'm tortured by this mess.

From that Phil goes to rambling about 'my soul for a goat' during Mongrel Mob anthem 'Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks'.  Phil was given a gift to entertain, which led to him doing it all except tapping the vein.  'Slaughtered' speaks for itself, you know it, we all do.  1990's metal in all its glory, shredding riffs, convincingly brutal.  This takes me back to that era, the days spent listening to this with a shotgun at my side under my chin, nude, waiting for the gun to go off.  Then 'Divine Intervention' came out and I was saved.  Elsewhere Phil stabs a cops ass during 'Use My Third Arm' and hurls a splintered chair at his dad.  'Fake fuck limp dick.....the daughter that sucks me off....does it taste like tequila or failure?......my human dick to blame, a sociopathic plan.....his getting by is a fisted fuck......what the world needs is another fucking cold war.....'

Sometimes I actually have trouble believing this album is real.  The tendency for unmatched excess has perhaps never been bettered.  What can we derive from the madness of Anselmo?  Was it all contrived?  How did he go from 'Rock The World' to this?  Was it a genuine display of a man in pain from a tortured youth or a cleverly conceived plan to become metal heavyweights through planned out agonized lyrics that appealed to similar youth worldwide, all of whom were outcasts and leading abused lifestyles?  This is perhaps the most unique mystery in metal history.  Were the drugs ailing poor Phil to the pint of insanity?  Even I'd have to sit down for a great while to come up with some of the poetry here.  The music matches it which adds to the album rightful status as one of the greats.  Deep down we all know it is.  As any geezer in his prime in the mid 90's and he'll use this as a source to the soundtrack to his life.  Pantera themselves topped this with 'Reinventing The Steel' but for the time it was the right place at the right time.
Horatio's Rating:  A

Discography (last updated 6.29.06):
Metal Magic - 1983
Projects In The Jungle - 1984
I Am The Night - 1985
Power Metal - 1988
Cowboys From Hell - 1990
Vulgar Display Of Power - 1992
Biomechanical EP - 1993
Alive And Hostile EP - 1994
Driven Down Under Box - 1994
Far Beyond Driven - 1994
The Great Southern Trendkill - 1996
The Singles 1991 - 1996 Box - 1996
Official Live:  101 Proof - 1997
Unofficial Hits EP - 1998
Reinventing The Steel - 2000
Extreme Steel Plus EP - 2001
Reinventing Hell - 2003
The Best Of Pantera:  Far Beyond The Great Southern Cowboys Vulgar Hits - 2003