Pantera "Vulgar Display Of Power (CD + DVD, Warner Music Japan, 20th Anniversary Edition, Remastered)"

Vulgar Display of Power is the sixth studio album by American heavy metal band Pantera. Released on February 25, 1992 through Atco Records, it was the band's second collaboration with producer Terry Date, after having previously worked with him on their breakthrough album Cowboys from Hell (1990).

The album was well received by both critics and fans, and is Pantera's highest selling album to date and would eventually be certified double platinum. It is often considered one of the most influential heavy metal albums of the 1990s. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked Vulgar Display of Power 10th on their list of 'The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time'. Several of its tracks have become among the band's best known, such as "Mouth for War", "A New Level", "Walk", "Fucking Hostile", and "This Love".

The band's 1990 major label debut, Cowboys from Hell, demonstrated a change in their musical direction, from their 1980s material influenced by hard rock or glam metal bands like Van Halen and Kiss to a new similarity to bands like Slayer, Metallica and Black Sabbath.

In 1991, Pantera returned to Pantego Sound Studio to record their second release under Atco, Vulgar Display of Power. The album was produced by Terry Date, who specializes in the rock and metal genres and had worked with the band on Cowboys from Hell. Date also went on to produce the band's following two albums, Far Beyond Driven (1994) and The Great Southern Trendkill (1996). Before Date came in to work on the album, the band had demoed three tracks, "A New Level", "Regular People (Conceit)" and "No Good (Attack the Radical)". The rest of the songs were written in the studio with little preproduction and demoing.

After being in the studio for two months, Pantera were invited to open for Metallica and AC/DC at the 1991 Monsters of Rock free concert in Moscow, Russia's Tushino airfield on September 28, 1991. The band then returned to the studio to continue work on the album. They travelled to New York City to master the album at Masterdisk. Although guitarist Darrell Abbott was credited on the album with nickname "Diamond Darrell", during the recording of the album he had dropped that nickname and assumed "Dimebag Darrell", and bassist Rex Brown dropped the pseudonym "Rexx Rocker".

Drummer Vinnie Paul said that Cowboys from Hell was really close to the "definitive Pantera sound". When Metallica released their self titled album in 1991, Pantera considered it a letdown to fans because they believed Metallica abandoned the thrash metal sound heard in previous albums. Pantera felt they had an opportunity and a gap to fill; they wanted to make the heaviest record of all time.

The riff for "Walk" is played in a time signature of 12/8. Darrell had played the riff during a soundcheck while Pantera was touring for Cowboys from Hell and the rest of the band loved it. Following this tour, the band returned home and found that some friends thought that rock stardom had gone to their heads. The lyrics for the song were inspired from these people's attitude toward the band; Anselmo's message to them was, "Take your fucking attitude and take a fuckin' walk with that. Keep that shit away from me."

The title of the album is taken from a line in the 1973 film, The Exorcist. (Priest: "If you're the Devil, why not make the straps disappear?". Girl: "That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.") In April 2007, the title was used for the book A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa, which includes many Pantera song titles as chapter headings. The book details the incidents leading up to the murder of Dimebag Darrell.

The album's cover is a photo of a man being "punched" in the face and was shot by photographer Brad Guice, who also shot the photo for the Cowboys from Hell cover. The band told their label that they wanted "something vulgar, like a dude getting punched". The first version of the cover that the label brought to the band showed a boxer with a boxing glove, but the band did not like it, so the label produced a second version, with the bare fist. A popular rumor that was stirred up by Vinnie Paul was that the man on the cover was paid $10 a punch and was hit in the face a total of 31 (Rex Brown claiming 32) times to get the right picture. However, Guice dispelled this when he confirmed that the man, who was a hired model named Sean Cross, was never actually hit.

Vulgar Display of Power was released on February 25, 1992. The original album spawned four singles. "Mouth for War", "This Love" and "Hollow" were released in 1992. In 1993, the band released the fourth single, titled "Walk", along with a number of EP's featuring remixes of the song. In 1993, the Walk EP was released in Japan, but on May 16, 2012, the EP was made available to purchase digitally in the United States for the first time. The band also released music videos for "Mouth for War", "This Love" and "Walk", they were included on Vulgar Video and 3 Vulgar Videos from Hell. The music video for "Walk" was shot at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, where the band played the song multiple times to capture live video footage in front of fans.

On April 12, 2012, the unheard song "Piss" was released, which was recorded during the sessions for the album but never featured on the original album. Drummer Vinnie Paul had re-discovered the song while looking through old Pantera recordings. The music video for "Piss" debuted at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards, on April 11, 2012. The main riff from "Piss" was used in the song "Use My Third Arm" on the band's following record Far Beyond Driven.

To promote the album, Pantera toured with Skid Row and Soundgarden giving them the opportunity to perform in front of a mainstream audience in the United States. After touring with Skid Row the band did a European tour with Megadeth. The band also toured with White Zombie in 1992. The unique sound and the band's explosive live performances helped them gain more popularity.

The music videos for singles from the album were played in relatively heavy rotation on MTV.[35] Also during the 1990s, MTV's Headbangers Ball used excerpts from the album's songs for the show's opening theme, bumpers, and closing theme. "Walk" and "Mouth for War" are available as downloadable tracks for the video game Rock Band 3. "Walk" was also featured on Madden NFL 10, CSI: NY and Monday Night Football.

"By Demons Be Driven" appears in the 2015 Academy Award-nominated film The Big Short: actor Christian Bale is seen performing along to the song on drums, which he learned for that one scene.

On May 15, 2012, a two-disc deluxe edition of Vulgar Display of Power was released to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Disc one is a remastered version of the original album along with the song "Piss". Disc two is a DVD featuring six songs from Pantera's set at their 1992 Monsters of Rock performance in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Disc two also contains the three music videos for "Mouth for War", "Walk" and "This Love". Vinnie Paul said that "Piss" was "the only undiscovered complete Pantera track there ever was" and it would appear on the 20th anniversary release. He also said that at the time of the original release, the band thought that it didn't feel right to go on the record.

Tracklist:

Disc 1 (CD)

1. Mouth for War 03:56
2. A New Level 03:57   
3. Walk 05:15   
4. Fucking Hostile 02:48  
5. This Love 06:32  
6. Rise 04:38   
7. No Good (Attack the Radical) 04:48   
8. Live in a Hole 05:00   
9. Regular People (Conceit) 05:27  
10. By Demons Be Driven 04:40   
11. Hollow 05:44   
12. Piss 05:07  

Time:  57:52  

Disc 2 (DVD)

1. Mouth for War (Live) 04:42  
2. Domination / Hollow (Live) 07:36  
3. Rise (Live) 04:52  
4. This Love (Live) 06:32  
5. Cowboys from Hell (Live) 05:12  
6. Mouth for War (Video) 04:09  
7. This Love (Video) 04:52  
8. Walk (Video) 05:21  
9. Piss (Video) 05:35  

Time:    48:51

 Track 12 previously unreleased; recorded during the Vulgar Display of Power sessions (1992).

Disc 2:

Tracks 1-5: live in Italy.

Tracks 6-8: The videos.

Trivia:

- The album peaked at #44 on the Billboard 200.

- The title of this album comes from the movie The Exorcist. The priest asks Regan to prove she is the Devil, to which she responds that would be too much of a vulgar display of power.

- Sean Cross is the man on the cover shown being punched. Contrary to popular rumours, Cross was never actually punched according to Brad Guice who took the image. The myth that he was a fan of the band and was paid 10 dollars for each punch to the face to be caught on camera was dispelled by Guice as he explained in an interview that the dynamic effect to make it look like a real punch was all just clever photography and editing.

Music videos:

- Mouth for War.

- Walk.

- This Love.

- Piss

Recording information:

Co-produced by Pantera.

Recorded & mixed at Pantego Sound Studio, Pantego, Texas (R.I.P.).

Disc 2 unreleased live video from the 1992 Monsters of Rock concert in Italy.