This July will mark the twentieth anniversary of the release of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell, and while I know that some of our readers who either a) weren’t born yet when the record came out or b) were in diapers when the record came out don’t “get” what the big deal is about Pantera, I’m hoping that their youthful arrogance will give way to some appreciation of history – which is to say that just because you’ve heard ten thousand bands that sound like Pantera doesn’t mean that Pantera didn’t do it first, and do it best. Remember that dude who told the Alternative Press “fuck Black Sabbath” and claimed they had no influence on his band? Remember what band that dude was in? Atreyu. You don’t wanna grow up to be a member of Atreyu, do you?

So. Pantera have an assload of reissues coming out. Details are still kinda scarce, but here’s what we know right now:

• There will be a twentieth anniversary edition of Cowboys from Hell at some point this year. It will be remastered and have bonus tracks – and if there are any never-before-released songs from the CfH recording sessions, I’d say now is as good a time as any to release those. Unfortunately, it will also change the cover art of the original album… but I guess that cover art actually hasn’t aged that well, so I’m too offended. It’s not as iconic as the Vulgar Display of Power cover art or anything.
• April 17 will see vinyl reissues of Cowboys, Vulgar, and Far Beyond Driven, which may actually be my personal favorite Pantera album, and is the one that I think had the most noticeable influence on the NWOAHM bands (e.g., Lamb of God, Chimaira, God Forbid, etc.).
• March 30 will see the release of a new greatest hits collection, 1990-2000: A Decade Of Domination. Now, it is my firm belief that real men don’t listen to greatest hits collections (they actually seek out entire albums), and I find this release especially unnecessary since the band’s previous greatest hits compilation, the ridiculous named Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys’ Vulgar Hits, was basically as good an assembly of the band’s most famous songs as you’re gonna get. That being said, if this collection either a) gains any new fans for Pantera and/or metal in general or b) contains any long lost Pantera studio recordings, well… I’ll ignore the fact that it’s basically a cash-in. But right now we don’t even know which songs are gonne be on this thing.

And that’s that for now. The twentieth anniversary of Vulgar is just a couple of years away, so I suspect I’ll be cutting and pasting large portions of this post in 2012.

-AR