{"id":97279,"date":"2026-05-07T09:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=97279"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:41:13","slug":"killing-trends-panteras-the-great-southern-trendkill-at-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=97279","title":{"rendered":"Killing trends: Pantera\u2019s \u2018The Great Southern Trendkill\u2019 at 30"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By RORY MOORE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty years ago, on May 7, 1996, Pantera unleashed fury on the heavy-metal scene with their eighth studio album, \u201cThe Great Southern Trendkill.\u201d The classic lineup \u2014 comprised of Phil Anselmo on lead vocals, the late Abbott Brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul on guitar and drums, and Rex Brown on bass \u2014 experimented with their distinctive groove-metal sound by making it as vicious as the demonic-looking Western Diamondback on the front cover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when metal bands were chasing the success of alternative rock in the \u201890s, the Texas group became disillusioned with the trend of their peers abandoning a heavier sound to appeal to a mainstream audience by being radio-friendly, feeling metal was becoming too \u201csoft and compromised.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their response was to defiantly make the most hardcore, aggressive and radio-unfriendly record possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c \u2018The Great Southern Trendkill\u2019 means we\u2019re from the South, and we\u2019re killing these trends,\u201d Anselmo said then. \u201cA lot of people miss the heavier edge to stuff that is so watered down today. (It)makes me sick, honestly, and we got thousands of people to prove it every night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recording process was marked by significant turmoil, which also contributed to the album\u2019s extreme tone. Anselmo\u2019s struggles with abusing painkillers and heroin led him to record his vocals separately at the Trent Reznor-owned Nothing Studios in New Orleans, creating challenges for the rest of the band as they worked without him at Darrell\u2019s Chasin\u2019 Jason Studio in Dalworthington Gardens, Texas, with the help of late metal icon Seth Putnam, who provided additional vocals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was 11 songs of unfiltered, head-thrashing, chaotic rampaging of pure nastiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Great Southern Trendkill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title track begins the album with a sudden blast of Anselmo\u2019s blood-curdling scream, Dime\u2019s explosive distortion, Brown\u2019s bass and Vinnie\u2019s rapid percussion \u2014 conveying a level of heaviness that surpasses the band\u2019s previous album, \u201cFar Beyond Driven,\u201d when fans thought they couldn\u2019t get any heavier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo growls his lyrics to reflect their discouragement with trends and losing oneself to fame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wearing on my mind; I\u2019m speaking all my doubts aloud. You rob a dead man\u2019s grave, then flaunt it like you did create.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wastes no time criticizing the fake personas encouraged by trend-setting and contemporary publications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cF*** your magazine, and f*** the long-dead plastic scene. Buy it at a store, from MTV to on the floor. You look just like a story; it\u2019s proof you don\u2019t know who you are. It\u2019s bulls**t time again. Politically relieved; your product sold and was well received. The right words spoken gold. If I was God, you\u2019d sell your soul to the great Southern trendkill!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song closes out with a slower, smoother rhythm with Anselmo\u2019s suave declaration, \u201cLet\u2019s play this one Southern-style!\u201d Dime fills the remainder of the track with a Texas rock-inspired charm that reflects their native roots, coupled with a solo he plays with an attitude defined by sliding and scratching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War Nerve<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the titular song fades out, the second track expands on the anti-trend theme with rugged, outlaw-influenced riffs that shift its pace to keep the listener on edge, pulling attention to the theme of reducing complex lives to simplistic judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTruly f**k the world for all its worth, every inch of Planet Earth. F**k myself, don\u2019t leave me out, but don\u2019t get involved, don\u2019t corner me. Meet the lies and see what you are!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo, who faced extensive scrutiny for his public struggles and relationship with his bandmates, proceeds to call the media out for judging \u201cwhat I am in one paragraph,\u201d while metaphorically telling them to take a hike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the money in the f**ckin\u2019 world couldn\u2019t buy me a second of trust or one ounce of faith in anything you\u2019re about! Nothing is worth the sleep that I\u2019ve lost. Apologies unacceptable now; a blistered revenge awaits in me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the chorus, Anselmo encourages the listener to break free of the judgments and fakeness with the warning, \u201cIt\u2019s forcing you down, and it\u2019s grinding against you. Let the war nerve break!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drag the Waters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dime starts the track with a mean riff that reeks of outlaw vibes, accompanied by his brother\u2019s steady-but-blistering pace and a cowbell. Anselmo tackles corruption, nepotism and warped ways people perceive reality and themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA smack on the wrist is the word from the mouth of the outsider, lawyer, police. A small price to pay for the dope and the guns and the rape, it should all be OK. Your father is rich, he\u2019s a judge, he\u2019s the man, he\u2019s the god who got your sentence reduced, but in the back of his mind, he well knows what he\u2019d find if he looked a little deeper in you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the song\u2019s lyrics are cleaner than its counterparts, it holds no bars in deconstructing the world\u2019s injustices, along with the greed and temptation in people, as it packs a punch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSweet is the slice and the lips, you\u2019re gonna have that woman; she is your favorite lay. Promised you (swore) that no one had been there, and she was gonna keep it that way. Let it move in, you got thin and got high, and your money went, and so did your friends. But she\u2019s by your side, and her smile cannot hide the premonition of a beckoning hand, the end!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dime rips some groovy solos that encapsulate the track\u2019s tough attitude, and plays his guitar as if it were responding to Anselmo\u2019s blunt statements of people\u2019s wrongdoings and facing their consequences to \u201cdrag the waters some more, like never before!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrendkill\u201d takes a darker, somber tone with its fourth track, defined by moody, bluesy riffs that create an introspective feel amid the album\u2019s chaos. Anselmo shares a personal viewpoint, unlike the previous three songs, contextualizing his drug dependency and misery by bellowing out his lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy skin is cold, transfusion with somebody, morose and old, drop into fruitless dying. It was tempting and bared; the wh*ring angel rising. Now burning prayers, my silent time of losing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cries out in fear of death from his addictions and pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong for the blur, we cannot dry much longer, cement to dirt, disgusted with my cheapness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dime rips an emotional solo that elevates the track from a feeling of despair to one of determination to defeat personal demons, conveyed by Anselmo\u2019s swear that his foes \u201ccan\u2019t destroy my body, colliding slow, like life itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 Steps to Nowhere<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a slow burn, the album returns to its aggression, with Pantera\u2019s signature sound harkening back to the days of \u201cCowboys from Hell\u201d and \u201cVulgar Display of Power,\u201d but with an angrier twist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour windows boarded up, your private lives exposed, the talk shows it up, lab rats diseased for show. We\u2019re doomed to use the slang: ‘outbreak of drug roulette.’ A church burned to the ground, not even noticed yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo paints the world with a bleak outlook drawn by manipulation, hate and sensationalized suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe backlash dislocates, untimely reign of death. The wolf poked with the stick, awaits with cancerous breath. Outsiders still suppose there\u2019s holy streets to roam. The truth should not surprise; your homes were built on lies!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He yells his lyrics with a strained anticipation of society\u2019s demise, establishing an apocalyptic theme that Dime furthers with his doomful riffs. At the same time, Vinnie creates a frantic atmosphere through his machine-gun double bass. Thematically, the track ends nowhere, as the band closes it out with the chorus, \u201cThirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen steps!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suicide Note Pt. 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An industrialized transition into the two-part track leads to a stark contrast of relative calm, but with heavy emotional weight. The transition is broken by a Southern-style acoustic riff from Dime that echoes the melancholy of \u201cCemetery Gates,\u201d albeit with a lower tune. Anselmo\u2019s lyrics tell a narrative of a damaged individual\u2019s thoughts before death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCheap cocaine, dry inhale, the pills that kill and take the pain away. Diet of life, shelter without, the face that cannot see inside yours and mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo offers a sympathetic reflection of his pain through the pre-chorus, detailing, \u201cWhen I\u2019m hiding, when I need it, it helps me breathe. For our handle on this life, I don\u2019t believe this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is followed by the second verse, which conveys the loss of hope and the will to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForever fooling, free and using. Sliding down the slide that breaks a will. Mother\u2019s angel, getting smarter, how smart are you to regress unfulfilled?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a troubled soul, Anselmo injects his place as a troubled soul through the song’s repeated chorus that asks the listener, \u201cWould you look at me now? Can you tell I\u2019m a man? With the scars on my wrists to prove I\u2019ll try again, try to die again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the sad theme, the album offers a break from the fray with a somber, quiet piece that offers light at the end of the tunnel, accompanied by a subtle keyboard. The listener has a brief breather as the song ends softly, only to be violently shoved back into the metal mayhem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suicide Note Pt. 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut of my mind, gun up to the mouth. No pretension, execution. Live and learn, rape and turn. Fret not family, nor pre-judged army. This is for me, and me only; cowards only try it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The track\u2019s second part bursts into the album\u2019s marquee-fast, loud tempo, dialed up to a nine. Being the polar opposite of part one, the band reaches their heaviest, hard-thrashing sound that makes their groove-defined tune flirt with Death Metal, comprised of a head-on percussion attack from Vinnie, while Dime makes his guitar scream for its life with a bone-chilling shriek amplified by a DigiTech Whammy effects pedal that complements Anselmo\u2019s relentless screaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lyrics make a vivid description of hopelessness and pain as Anselmo comes off as at his wits\u2019 end and deranged at once, warning that it’s not worth the time to try to \u201creplenish a rotting life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He begs the question of why one would help anyone who \u201cdoesn\u2019t want it, doesn\u2019t need it when a mind\u2019s made up to go ahead and die.\u201d Anselmo urges the listener, \u201cDon\u2019t try to do like me,\u201d warning that suicide is \u201clivid and it\u2019s lies, and makes graves descending down,\u201d as the track closes with a death march towards the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living Through Me (Hell\u2019s Wrath)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another fast-paced tune, the trendkilling transitions into an unrelenting fury that tackles addiction and toxic relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI cannot take the take, your condition was nod awake. A selfish crier, boldface liar, robbing all of what you could take in. Sh*t decisions, no provisions, filling veins with juice of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo explores the troubles that addiction brings, diving into it turns one into a selfish, self-loathing liar, mirroring his struggles as a former addict. He demands the listener to \u201cdrop the needle and stop what you\u2019re changing into\u201d after seeing it all in hell\u2019s wrath. The raw energy comes to a grinding halt after the blunt message, \u201cNow you\u2019re living through me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Floods<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album\u2019s most popular track, Pantera turns things down a notch with a slower, mellower tempo encapsulated by a haunting acoustic riff from Dime. At the same time, Anselmo tells the narrative of humanity\u2019s end like a grizzled soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA dead issue, don\u2019t wrestle with it, deaf ears are sleeping. A guilty bliss, so inviting, nailed to the cross!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seven-minute epic draws parallels to the Biblical flood from the Book of Genesis, which God punishes mankind with for its atrocities and horrors committed, prompting the narrator to call for a catastrophic cleansing of the cold-hearted world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen throughout the day, mankind played with grenades,\u201d Anselmo exclaims. \u201cAnd at night, they might bait the pentagram, extinguishing the sun. Wash away man, take him with the flood!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song then shapeshifts through numerous phases and tempos, including a solo that is regarded as the best of Dime\u2019s career and captures the theme of longing for redemption, before he ends it with a lullaby-like outro heightened by rainfall and thunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Underground in America<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album ends where it began, calling out the trends and those selling out for a cleaner sound while pretending they\u2019re part of America\u2019s underground culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPut in position to wage teenage mayhem, a common affair for the ones who are juiced. If it is weakness that grants us the power, we thrive on what\u2019s stronger than most of the world!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anselmo gives a furious takedown of the scene posers he perceives as embracing whatever seems trendy while putting on a persona. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCheap beer, trendy cliques. If it is free from a family that\u2019s seen, you can just keep it. If you must beg, it\u2019s better instead. You must follow the etiquette. You act so real when you are alone, you better not let the mohawked crowd see; give it five years, you\u2019ll retire your piercings!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He ushers in these scathing critiques of people who hide their true selves while using the underground as a phase, getting his point across by shrieking \u201cfake\u201d between the lyrics that take up the song\u2019s bridge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band stops thrashing at what seems like the album\u2019s end, with the addition of industrialized sound effects that tweak in the background as Anselmo yells that the \u201ctrend is dead,\u201d only for Dime to start playing the second riff from \u201cUnderground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reprise) Sandblasted Skin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as the listener thought the chaos was done, the band picks up where they left off, taking the thrashing further with an all-out assault on the eardrums: frantic percussion that keeps a speedy rhythm as Anselmo growls for the trend to be scraped, ground, peeled, hidden and shelved to be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWaste of time, pantomime, circus doll at the local mall; exterminate! It\u2019s all fake! Sandblast yourself!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band crushes the fad with its hardcore jamming, culminating with the song fading out into a minute-long silence before the song fades in full force, but louder, before coming to a crashing conclusion defined by Anselmo\u2019s proclamation: \u201cThe trend is over, and gone forever!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RORY MOORE Tiger Media Network Thirty years ago, on May 7, 1996, Pantera unleashed fury on the heavy-metal scene with their eighth studio album,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3402],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-area-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Album-Cover.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97281,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97279\/revisions\/97281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/97280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}