Pantera

Far Beyond Driven

Good but not great.

Review Score:

(6/10)
This is a good album, but can I clear up a big mistake that everybody seems to be making? This is one of Pantera's heaviest, but it certainly is not one of "The heaviest albums ever", as one reviewer put it. "Easily the heaviest band ever unleashed into the world"? I don't think so. Have you lot never of the death metal scene or something?

Anyways, this is quite a good album, but it is not that easy to get into. Unlike other Pantera albums, you have to work with it a bit. I wouldn't recommend this to newcomers. There are some really good tracks such as "Strength Beyond Strength", "Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks", "Shedding Skin" and "Use My Third Arm" but there are also some really crap ones like "Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills", "25 Years" and "Throes Of Rejection". I find the way that "Strength Beyond Strength" and "Use My Third Arm" completely slow down so that they sound like something off a groovy sludge album really annoying, it does ruin the songs a bit. "Becoming", "5 Minutes Alone" and "I'm Broken" are good but I had to listen to them quite a few times before I liked them. I will admit that there is a bit more variety among the songs than in most albums, but one of the best songs on the album is the cover of Black Sabbaths "Planet Caravan", perhaps showing up some of the bands own work.

Vulgar Display Of Power and Cowboys From Hell are much better albums.

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