The liking for anyone’s favorite musician can be verbally expressed or best done through a written script. But, it becomes almost impossible to do so when you lose a hero like none other than Dimebag Darrell, in the freakiest of incidents. I hope these words of mine pay a tribute to one of the youngest tragedy met legend. Dimebag Darrell was a mere 36 years of age when he was shot dead at a concert in Columbus late Wednesday Dec8th! He was playing with his current band damage plan. The guy traded his bicycle with his father for a guitar after hearing Black Sabbath at a tender age Proving, he had a lethal passion towards those great big riffs (BS), and that fervent enthusiasm led to the creation of Pantera! A band that catapulted heavy metal that exist today. After a share of power by the most powerful metal bands i.e. Judas Priest, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax over a period of time Pantera’s throne of music remained an unconquered arena by these formers and is still is untouched by those who exist today. Pantera’s music still heard looks determined, unruffled, uncompromising, attitude-oriented and fresh. All this, courtesy the great hands and the accompanying axe of the man from Dallas Pantera released ‘cowboys from hell’ when Dime must have been only 22years old that was year 1990. Imagine a 22-year-old guy coming out with riffs like ‘Cowboys from hell’,’ Primal concrete sledge’, ‘ Domination’, ‘heresy’. The whole world stood still watching the success stories of pantera’s debut selling millions and the young band playing sold out arenas. And, behind each subsequent success story of the band. Dimebag was the force!

1992’s ‘Vulgar display of power’ wrote another chapter in his guitar playing style as the riffs became monstrous, crunchy, and thick. The record only belonged to Dimebag because; if those riffs hadn’t been created vulgar wouldn’t have been a display of class. The leads played on the album were utterly surprising and at the same time remained brilliantly executed as per the demands of the speed or tempo of the songs. Pinch harmonics remained his asset, through which he used to extract the last drop of juice, out of his riff extrvagance. Energy! Got another definition through his playing, and pantera touched new horizons with equal contributions coming in from the band mates. This phase of Dime’s playing didn’t actually stagnate to this particular style. The fan treat continued with 94’s creation ‘Far beyond driven’ an album that drove Dime’s playing drifting to infusion of distorted plucking, slower pacing, grooved orientation and even acoustics as a tribute to his heroes Black Sabbath. (‘Planet caravan’). ‘ Far beyond’ saw Dimebag driving away from the conventional guitar playing style and made it clear, what to expect from him with each coming release. The lingering key phrase-its going to be different!

The legacy of Dime continued with ‘The great southern trendkill’that silenced the critics who were anticipating the band to go mellow, as it was the trend then. Yes, when metallica and megadeth were on the move to grab much more commercial success. Dimebag and company produced the most uncompromising, hard-hitting and blistering album of 96 reversing the trend and proclaiming that metal is best when it is hard and unadulterated. This was another feather in the cap of Dime’s brilliant creations, as he had again changed the style, repackaging vigor with darkness. Tricky it is to explain how he came up with songs like ‘Great southern trendkill’, ‘suicide note part2’ and ‘floods’, ‘suicide note part1’ during one thought process session on the album. Perhaps, it was his born ability to compose such masterpieces of immeasurable depth and vibe. Pantera’s last studio album ‘Reinventing the steel’ played as a tribute to gods Judas Priest. Worldwide, the fans got another refreshing masterpiece record that had a lot of experimentation on guitar sound (not electronica and stuff), guest inclusion (Kerry king of slayer handling guitar on ‘ goddamn electric’), and flat out tempo changes. All these were used to create closeness to great ‘British steel’ album of Judas priest that actually set the heavy metal trend rolling in the eighties.

Though it was never to be the case with pantera, as we have the reasons known from history that what happened to probably one of the greatest entities of metal Pantera! With the doors closed the chapter never did, as it was then Dime’s damage plan, which continued to rock. Until, Wednesday 8th December eve,

His playing still inspires, millions marching to metal! Wonder we will have another one like him! For those metalling ahead you know Dimebag has no parallel!

Author : Atul Sharma (aryaputraatul@yahoo.com)

Note: This article was published in Jan 2005