Cowboys from Hell is the fifth studio album by Pantera, released on July 24, 1990, by Atco Records. It marked the band’s major label debut and their first collaboration with producer Terry Date. This was also the album where Pantera started to abandon the glam style of their previous albums in favor of a heavier sound. It has been recognized as one of the first ever groove metal albums.
The cover art depicts the band in a quaint Western saloon. In reality, it is a 1910 photo of the “Cosmopolitan Saloon” in Telluride, Colorado, with the bandmembers pasted over it. Diamond Darrell is pictured in the center playing guitar, while Vinnie Paul is standing to his right counting money, Rex Brown is leaning against the counter top and Phil Anselmo is shown jumping in the air to Brown‘s left.
Anselmo states that he jumped off a bar stool to get high up in the air and that it took him about ten takes until the cameramen got the shot of the desired style. The album would become the band’s breakthrough record as it became their first album to chart in 1992, reaching No. 27 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers. In March 1995, the album entered the Swedish Charts for one week managing to peak at No. 46. It has since gone on to attain a 2x Platinum (2,000,000 units) certification in the U.S. as well as Gold status in the U.K. for sales of 100,000.
Tracklist:
- Cowboys from Hell
- Primal Concrete Sledge
- Psycho Holiday
- Heresy
- Cemetery Gates
- Domination
- Shattered
- Clash with Reality
- Medicine Man
- Message in Blood
- The Sleep
- The Art of Shredding
Pantera
Phil Anselmo: vocals
Diamond Darrell: guitars
Rex Brown: bass, acoustic guitar and piano (track 5)
Vinnie Paul: drums
Technical
Terry Date: producer, engineer, mixing
Pantera: producer, engineer, mixing
Matt Lane: assistant engineer
Matt Gililland: assistant engineer
Howie Weinberg: audio mastering
Darrell Lance Abbott (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004)
Vincent Paul Abbott (March 11, 1964 – June 22, 2018).
