Pantera and David Alan Coe? I was trying to imagine heavy guitar with country / outlaw vocals layered over the top, but I couldn’t, just couldn’t! Even after listening to the album, I still find it amazing. I just imagine that putting this band together would have been similar to a group of friends putting a basketball team together over Pizza and Drinks on a Friday night. Dimebag, Vinnie and D.A.C. drinking whisky and listening to tunes and making drunken exclamations of how they could do better. Then waking up the next morning and deciding to do it.
Well, they did it and the results are actually quite good. I would argue this is a very ambitious project. David Allan Coe’s vocals don’t match the intensity required for a Pantera style riff, but the sound is still effective. Some tracks sound as though there has been effects applied to D.A.C.’s vocals, which on the first listen I found annoying, but later I found slightly haunting.
I feel that this is an experimental album, there are so many genres covered on this album and in single songs alone, two or three genres are touched. Some of the influences are obvious, Pantera, Killswitch Engage (Track 6 could be a KSE track with Jesse Leech screaming at the front) and numerous country elements. There is a lot of acoustic guitair layered through this album and I hear diverse influences from Creedence Clearwater Revival, to Bob Dylan ‘John Wesley Harding’ era and alt. rock styled strumming.
I feel that the album is more effective at a slower pace, this is when David Allan Coe’s vocal excel and it shows another side of the lads from Pantera. In saying that, there is nothing better than a pounding riff written by Dimebag, and there are times when your amp just can’t go loud enough.
This is definitely worth a listen but don’t expect a pure Pantera experience or a straight country record either. This is a group of like minded individuals coming from varied backgrounds who tried something different. Overall: 7/10
