Dimebag Darrell’s legendary Dean From Hell electric guitar has made an unlikely return to the stage in the hands of Phil Anselmo for Pantera’s recent show in Cleveland.

The sticker-laden Dean ML was originally maroon-colored when it ended up in the possession of Dimebag, who first won it in a competition in 1981.

Dime temporarily sold the instrument, but, knowing that he'd soon want the electric guitar back, Texan luthier Buddy Blaze repainted it, upgraded its hardware, and presented it to Dime as a surprise.

It became Dimebag's Number One guitar, and is the axe most commonly associated with the late guitar great, despite the fact he pivoted to Washburns in the 1990s and put the DFL into retirement.

Over three decades later, Pantera guitar tech Grady Champion has reflected on his “surreal” experience of getting the iconic guitar stage-ready for Anselmo to use on Goddamn Electric.

“I’m messing around with the OG,” he’s heard saying in a clip posted to Instagram. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is Dimebag’s number one guitar. She’s gonna have some new life tonight, [and] Philip is gonna be surprised.”

There’s a poignant moment when Champion drapes the guitar over Anselmo’s shoulder. He had no idea that the guitar was going to be handed to him as the track, from 2000 LP Reinventing the Steel, reached its riff-infested final throes.

The lightning design paint job is one Zakk Wylde – who is filling Dime’s shoes in the band for their current tour – has had wrapped around one of his Wylde Audio Warhammer guitars in tribute to Dime. In Cleveland, it met the real deal.

Clips from the social posts show clear war wounds across the Dean From Hell. Its headstock, especially, wears its history proudly on its sleeve, having helped turn Pantera from fresh-faced upstarts to one of metal's biggest acts by the time it received a well-deserved retirement.

It’s not clear if the DFL will get further stage time during the shows ahead, but either way, its rare appearance in the wild is something to celebrate.

Pantera's legacy may also be set to live on in other ways. Zakk Wylde says there have been talks of turning unfinished Dimebag demos into new songs, while Pantera superfan Kayla Kent is looking to start a new band, and her first demo shows Dime’s spirit is very much alive and kicking.

Pantera have been axed from the bills of two of Europe's biggest rock festivals, Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, organizers have announced.

The metal juggernaut – which reformed last year with original members Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown, with Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante filling in on guitar and drums for late musicians Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul respectively – will no longer appear at both festivals, which are due to run concurrently in Germany from June 2 to 4 this year.

In a translated statement shared on social media, organizers for the festivals say they have taken the decision following “intensive conversations with artists, our partners, and the festival fans”.

While specific reasons for Pantera’s removal have not yet been issued, several factors may have contributed to the decision.

First, the band’s reunion has been highly divisive since its announcement in July last year. While many have celebrated the metal titans getting on stage once again to perform their classic tracks, some have questioned whether such a reunion should take place without legendary founding members Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul.

Vinnie Paul’s estate even issued a statement last year asserting that the band’s upcoming shows would not constitute a reunion, writing, “There can never be a Pantera reunion without Vinnie and Dime.”

The statement did, however, say that “there is no better way to celebrate and honor Vinnie and Dime’s legacy than to bring the music of Pantera directly to the fans”.

Another issue that has had a lasting effect on the reputation of frontman Phil Anselmo is the 2016 Dimebash tribute show during which he displayed a Nazi salute and yelled “white power” at the crowd. His actions prompted outrage from both the metal and wider communities.

Anselmo declined to apologize for the incident at first, but later said that he was “1,000 percent apologetic to anyone that took offence to what I said, because you should have taken offence”.

Pantera have yet to comment on their removal from the Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park lineups.

The festivals, which are set to take place June 2 to 4 in Nürburgring and Nürnberg, respectively, will feature performances from Rise Against, Limp Bizkit, Kings Of Leon, Tenacious D, Bring Me The Horizon, Machine Gun Kelly and more.

Dimebag Darrell was a true original. According to bandmate Rex Brown, a teenage Dime went into his bedroom with Ozzy Osbourne's Diary of a Madman and a handful of Van Halen records and came out a readymade guitar hero – and his inimitable playing with Pantera is testament to his next-level talents.

From the Texas institution's glam-metal origins to the heaviest album to ever top the Billboard charts, Pantera chiseled out a legacy that few metal bands can top – and Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown's recent revival of the band with Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante is keeping their distinctly southern brand of sledgehammer riffage alive for a new generation.

In that spirit, we celebrate the heaviest of the heavy with our guide to Pantera's 25 greatest songs, from Revolution is My Name and This Love to Cemetery Gates and Cowboys from Hell. But we begin with a deep cut from The Great Southern Trendkill…

25. 10's

Album: The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

One of Pantera’s most haunting compositions, 10’s comes into focus slowly, floating in on an ethereal, if crusty-sounding, bent-note Dimebag riff.

The warped guitars and slow pacing provide an appropriately uneasy environment for a weary vocal from Phil Anselmo, who documents a man “disgusted with [his] cheapness” and destroying himself from the inside out through addiction. An acoustic guitar interlude and a liquid Dime solo that, for a few bars at least, unexpectedly wanders into major-key territory, allow a few seconds of sunshine to poke through the black clouds.

But overall, 10’s is positively chilling and all-consuming in its atmosphere of impending doom.

24. Goddamn Electric

Album: Reinventing the Steel (2000)

Pantera’s final studio album didn’t actually reinvent the steel, but thanks to tracks like Goddamn Electric they certainly reclaimed their title as the masters of metal heading into the new millennium. This song’s main riff stomps along like Godzilla slowly moshing to Walk, and the entire tune wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Vulgar Display of Power. 

Dimebag’s solo is killer, but the thriller is a guest spot by Slayer’s Kerry King, who delivers a wicked whammy-bar blast to close out the song’s final 45 seconds. Pantera rarely featured guests on their albums, so this appearance by Dime’s blood brother is an unexpected surprise.

23. It Makes Them Disappear

Album: Reinventing the Steel (2000)

It Makes Them Disappear kicks off with a psychedelic, cleanly voiced guitar lick, but from there the song quickly descends into a molasses-thick pit of sludge. The downtuned, wobbly guitars and bloated bass, not to mention Anselmo’s raw-throated delivery, suggest a song that could have been tackled just as appropriately by the singer’s doomy southern metal side project, Down. 

And yet, the final two minutes of the tune are largely a Dimebag showcase, with the guitarist ripping out an incredibly bluesy and melodic solo, albeit one that sounds like it’s being delivered from the depths of a tar pit. 

“The majority of Reinventing the Steel was recorded with the guitar tuned down a whole step [low to high: D-G-C-F-A-D],” Dime told Guitar World in early 2000. “The cool thing about this tuning, besides sounding heavy, is that your guitar feels totally different – the strings are real loose and spongy, which means you can get some big-assed bends and killer wide vibrato happening.”

22. P*S*T*88

Album: Power Metal (1988)

Pantera’s pre-Cowboys albums aren’t particularly highly regarded – even by the band members themselves – but out of all of those efforts Power Metal had more than a few worthy moments. P*S*T*88 is particularly noteworthy as it features one of Dimebag’s rare performances as lead vocalist. 

The overall recording resembles a mash-up of Judas Priest and Kill Em All–era Metallica, and Dimebag even sounds like the mutant offspring of James Hetfield and Rob Halford, proving that he could have been a frontman if he so desired.

21. Planet Caravan/Hole in the Sky

Albums: Far Beyond Driven (1994) and Revolution is My Name EP (2001)

The list of Pantera influences is long and includes bands like Judas Priest, Slayer and even King’s X, Kiss and Van Halen, but Black Sabbath were their biggest influence. They name-checked them in the lyrics to Goddamn Electric, and of the six cover songs they recorded in the studio during their career, three of them were Black Sabbath tunes. 

Planet Caravan was originally intended for the Nativity in Black tribute album, but when it was cut due to a record company dispute, they added it to the end of Far Beyond Driven. Pantera’s faithful rendition of Hole in the Sky debuted on the Japanese 2001 Revolution Is My Name EP along with the non-LP track Immortally Insane.

20. Floods

Album: The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

Despite the fact that Pantera called the album that Floods appeared on The Great Southern Trendkill, this song sounds an awful lot like grunge (particularly Soundgarden), one of the many musical genres at which the cocky album title takes aim.

Regardless, it’s a great song, which was made great by what many consider to be the finest guitar solo Dimebag ever laid down in the studio. The sweetly melodic main guitar figure in the intro and ending often gets overlooked, but it’s a fine example of Dimebag’s emotional range, proving that there was much more to his playing than his usual blunt-force trauma.

19. Shedding Skin

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

Shedding Skin continues the theme of emotional cleansing that Phil Anselmo began on Far Beyond Driven’s previous track, 25 Years. Only here the singer’s object of ire is not his father but rather a former girlfriend. The song comes crashing in right out of the gate with a choppy, staircase-like unison riff from Dime and Rex. 

But then it abruptly shifts gears into a mellow verse punctuated by Dimebag’s gently plucked guitar harmonics, over which Anselmo paints a vivid and disturbing picture of a relationship as a scabrous membrane needing to be excised from his body. 

By the song’s climactic finale, Anselmo finds the only escape is to shed his own skin “to peel you off of me.” Dimebag then punctuates the singer’s cathartic metamorphosis with an appropriately anguished and squealing solo.

18. 25 Years

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

Both this song and the same album’s Becoming are said to deal with Phil Anselmo’s difficult relationship with his father. But whereas the latter wraps the singer’s paternal purging in a catchy riff and an almost inspirational lyric, 25 Years is a dark and twisted descent into the deepest recesses of his pain. 

Anselmo delivers his lyrics to a “weakling” and a “liar” in a monotone bark, and each syllable he utters is backed by a similarly minimal one-note chord hit. It’s a brilliantly corrosive, almost claustrophobic arrangement that finally breaks four-and-a-half minutes in – Dime, Rex and Vinnie open up the song with a quicker groove and Anselmo turns the tables, announcing himself the bastard father to Pantera’s unwashed and unwanted masses of fans. 

“We’re fucking you back!” he screams repeatedly, exorcising his demons and finding a little bit of redemption in the almighty power of the riff.

17. Strength Beyond Strength

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

Hardcore punk and thrash were always closely related, but rarely did the twain meet more effectively than on Strength Beyond Strength. Fans who popped new copies of Far Beyond Driven into their CD players in 1994 and were greeted by the initial sonic assault of Strength Beyond Strength can be forgiven for thinking that the Exploited’s latest album was mistakenly inserted in the case. 

When the breakneck pace slows to a grind a little more than a minute into the song, the mood and attitude becomes unmistakably Pantera, especially after Dimebag unleashes an eerie harmonized guitar interlude about another minute later.

16. War Nerve

Album: The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

By the time of The Great Southern Trendkill, Pantera were bona fide rock stars. As such, their music and, in particular, Anselmo’s lyrics and actions as a frontman, had started to be put under a mainstream microscope. Among other things, the band and singer had been hit with charges in the media of racism and homophobia, and War Nerve was in a way Anselmo’s response to these and other accusations: “For every fucking second the pathetic media pisses on me,” he rants in the chorus, “Fuck you all.” 

The band backs him up with one of the leanest and most direct arrangements to be found in their post Vulgar-output. In fact, War Nerve is a rare instance in which there’s no Dime solo to be found. That said, his brother Vinnie picks up the slack with a vicious and unusually busy drum performance.

15. Mouth for War

Album: Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Mouth for War is a prime example of Pantera at the height of their early '90s powers: Vinnie Paul bashes out a machine-gun beat, Dimebag and Rex pair up on a wickedly intricate yet incredibly catchy riff built on sheets of sliding power chords, and Phil Anselmo barks out a self-empowerment lyric with searing rage and intensity. 

And the music video, which presented the band mostly in stark black-and-white and with plenty of chaotic strobe lighting for effect, only further cemented their status as the new kings of metal. 

When people think of Pantera, it is most likely this iteration of the band, led by a shaven-headed, bare-chested Anselmo, that comes to mind. By the time they break into a ferocious double-time groove and Anselmo signs off with the line, “No one can piss on this determination,” only a fool would dare to disagree with the sentiment.

14. 5 Minutes Alone

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

When the pissed-off father of a Pantera heckler who was beaten up at a show said that he wanted five minutes alone with Phil Anselmo, the band turned that threat into this song. Of course anyone who knows Anselmo also knows that five minutes alone with him is the last thing anyone would want. 

The slow, ground-and-pound groove behind this song suggests that Phil would probably take his sweet time delivering the beat down, but while the instigator who influenced this song would probably be screaming for mercy by the song’s end, listeners are begging for more as the riff fades into oblivion.

13. Domination

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

Pantera are often seen as the progenitors of groove metal, and you’d be hard pressed to find a more defining example of the style than the first 30 seconds of this classic. In fact, from the raging intro/chorus riff, to the stop-start verse, to the brutal breakdown that ends the song, Domination is basically one ridiculously savage power-groove after another. 

Given this fact, the song was also used as the band’s live set opener during shows in 1990 and 1991, as it was guaranteed to immediately whip a crowd into a batshit-crazy frenzy. As for what is screamed at the very beginning of the song? General consensus points to “Fart stinks like a motherfucker!” Which might help to explain the ferocity with which the band then tears into the opening riff.

12. I'm Broken

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

Pantera wisely placed Far Beyond Driven’s three best songs (Becoming, 5 Minutes Alone, I’m Broken) near the album’s beginning. I’m Broken was the last of this triple threat, neatly completing the band’s most devastating studio recording hat trick. 

“I think that I’m Broken is the riff of all riffs,” Rex Brown says, and for most Pantera fans it would be hard to disagree. Anselmo compares the song to the blues, but has there ever been a blues song with lyrics as cryptic and critical as “Too young for one’s delusion the lifestyle cost/Venereal mother embrace the loss”?

11. Becoming

Album: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

Anyone who went to a Pantera concert between 1994 and 2001 knows why Becoming is revered by the band’s fans. The combination of Vinnie Paul’s military drum corps–inspired double-kick rumble and Dimebag’s gut-pummeling riff instantly instigated the most violent mosh pits known to mankind, and the energy that filled the room was so electric that no-one would have been surprised if thunder clouds suddenly formed. 

Dimebag’s solo is the ultimate anti-solo, saying more in an obnoxious burst of noise than most players say in entire careers. The way he uses a Whammy pedal to make his guitar sound like a howler monkey in a Vitamix is simply brilliant.

10. The Art of Shredding

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

A classic '80s-style thrasher, The Art of Shredding combines the heavily scooped guitar tone and speed-metal attack of bands like Testament and Overkill with the type of meta subject matter and gang-shouted background vocals that have always been Exodus’s stock in trade. 

In that respect, it’s hardly the most progressive moment on Cowboys from Hell. But with its rollercoaster ride of whiplash riffs and rhythms, it is one of the most enjoyable. Furthermore, Dimebag tops off the proceedings with a gonzo, whammy-filled solo that ably demonstrates that shredding is, in fact, very much an art.

9. Revolution is My Name

Album: Reinventing the Steel (2000)

While Dimebag’s atonal guitar howls on this song’s intro may be the weirdest sounds ever to grace a Grammy-nominated song, the remainder of this tune wouldn’t have been out of place on an early Black Sabbath album.

Anselmo even sounds a bit like Ozzy in a few parts – perhaps after Ozzy woke up hung over and gargled with benzene and razor blades. Beyond the classic metal melodiousness, what makes this song so damn good is the way it seamlessly darts between dramatic tempo and rhythmic shifts and somehow sounds cohesive.

After delivering a note-perfect metal solo, complete with harmonies, Dimebag returns to the groove with sounds that defy transcription, proving revolution was his name.

8. Drag the Waters

Album: The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

As one of the most straightforward and definitively Pantera songs on The Great Southern Trendkill, Drag the Waters was the obvious choice to be the album’s first single. While it mostly treads familiar ground, it also finds the band growing in new directions. Dimebag’s guitar tone in particular is more massive than ever, and you don’t need to be Bruce Dickinson to love the cowbell that Vinnie Paul lays down with his drum track.

Anyone needing a track to explain what Pantera’s “power groove” means would be wise to choose Drag the Waters, as it’s heavy as hell, but you can still shake your ass to it. The solo is particularly tasty, as Dimebag goes for more of a slow burn than his usual balls-to-the-wall explosions of speed. 

“That lead is kinda like an old Van Halen thing, where the band breaks to feature the solo,” Dimebag said in 1996. “Actually, on this one I ended up keeping a lot of the original guide-track stuff I laid down while we were cutting the drums. Sometimes you record something that you plan on redoing later, but then when you listen back to it you decide to keep it because you realize that it’s gonna be real tough to beat!”

7. Message in Blood

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

This deep Cowboys cut comes on like a demented sonic funhouse, replete with eerie atmospherics, detached voices laughing behind Anselmo’s vocal (with lyrics ostensibly about the Charles Manson murders) and constantly changing tempos and attacks. The first half is an all-out creepfest highlighted by Anselmo’s blood-curdling screams.

Then the tone abruptly shifts as Dimebag steps up with an intensely layered and textured solo, which only leads into more instrumental twists and turns. A disorienting and disturbing prog-metal death trip.

6. Walk

Album: Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Pantera wasn’t the kind of band that radio warmed up to during the '90s, but in the rare instances when Pantera did get airplay it was usually this song.

Dimebag often described Pantera’s music as “power goove,” and Walk may be the best example of what he meant, even though it swaggered along to an unorthodox 12/8 time signature. 

The chromatic open low E string and first-fret riff seems simpler than it actually is, thanks to Dimebag’s expert string bends, salacious swing and impeccable feel. To match the menace of Phil Anselmo’s Travis Bickle-inspired taunts, he tuned his guitar down a little more than a whole step, until the strings growled through his solid-state Randall amps.

5. This Love

Album: Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Back in 1992, This Love was a staple video on MTV and even climbed to Number Six on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. With a verse consisting of watery guitar arpeggios and Phil Anselmo’s crooned vocals offset by a mammoth, aggro chorus, the song signified Pantera’s big mainstream power-ballad moment – except other power ballads didn’t feature lyrics like, “I’d kill myself for you/I’d kill you for myself,” or a video in which a prostitute murders an overly frisky john in the back of a taxicab.

The song also wraps with a breakdown so crushingly slow and heavy that it could make a thousand metalcore bands wet their pants. But these moments still didn’t save the band from ridicule at the hands of the ultimate metalheads of the day, Beavis and Butt-Head: “Is that a tear, Pantera?” taunted Beavis while watching the This Love video in an episode of the MTV cartoon. “Is daddy’s little girl upset?”

4. Shattered

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

One listen to Phil Anselmo shrieking his way through the verses on Shattered might lead you to wonder whether somebody slipped a Judas Priest disc into your Pantera jewel case.

But the singer’s histrionics are just one of many ways in which this Cowboys track deviates from the Pantera norm. From Anselmo’s vocals to Dimebag’s nimble, racing riff to his uncharacteristically traditional-sounding shred solo, Shattered is three minutes and 21 seconds of steroid-injected, '80s-style Technicolor metal, and one of the few post-major-label nods to Pantera’s “glam era” output.

And yet, while the song is miles away in tone and temperament from, say, Suicide Note Pt. 2, it’s hardly a puff piece. The jackhammer pace and explosive guitar pyrotechnics (both Abbott brothers shine here) – not to mention its sheer “otherness” in relation to the rest of the post-Power Metal Pantera catalog – make Shattered something of a hidden and enormously entertaining gem. 

As an added bonus, the song is spackled with a nice helping of '80s-metal cheese: Anselmo’s castrato screams on the song’s title (harmonized for our pleasure); Dime’s whiz-bang outro solo; and a finale that climaxes with the sound of – you guessed it – a piece of glass being shattered.

3. A New Level

Album: Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Though it was never issued as a single, A New Level is arguably as well known as any of the Vulgar Display of Power cuts that were. Its intro riff, built on a slowly ascending barrage of crushing chromatics, is as iconic as the opening of Walk or Mouth for War.

The song also features some subtle shifts in dynamics, such as the chromatic half-step modulation that occurs as Anselmo’s vocal enters at the verse, and the way Dimebag varies his attack on the intro, sometimes playing the chords wide open, at other times with slight palm muting and yet at others with an extremely tight chunk. 

Of course, subtle is hardly the word to describe A New Level. Rather, it’s a classic Pantera rager that finds the band in full-on anthem mode, with Anselmo issuing a call to arms for the shit-, pissed- and spit-on metal masses. But it was Dime’s riffing that also helped the tune reach beyond those metal masses.

On the 2008-2009 Sticky & Sweet tour, Madonna ended performances of her retro-disco hit Hung Up by leading her band through a few bars of the song’s intro. What’s more, the Material Girl herself even riffed along on a black Les Paul. A new level, indeed.

2. Cemetery Gates

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

As far as heavy metal epics go, Cemetery Gates belongs in the company of celebrated classics like Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and Metallica’s One.

Clocking in at 7:02, it’s the longest studio song Pantera recorded. It’s also by far the pinnacle songwriting achievement of Dimebag Darrell, Phil Anselmo, Rex Brown and Vinnie Paul when they worked together in Pantera, with a masterfully structured arrangement that seamlessly ebbs and flows to support the eerie mood before it builds to its dramatic conclusion. 

Dimebag’s virtuoso performance, from his melodic solos to the harmonic whammy-bar screams at the song’s climax, features some of his finest work.

1. Cowboys from Hell

Album: Cowboys from Hell (1990)

With its razor-sharp riff, pummeling groove and ominous “We’re taking over this town” refrain, Cowboys from Hell started life as a rallying cry for the reborn version of Pantera circa 1989. As the first track on Pantera’s major-label debut of the same name, it quickly became the band’s anthem for the rest of its existence.

The song proclaimed in no uncertain terms that Pantera meant serious business as the next contenders to metal’s throne, while Dimebag Darrell’s delicious solo boldly announced that a new guitar hero was in town and loaded for bear. 

Although Cowboys from Hell was allegedly the first song that Pantera wrote for the album, by the time Pantera finished recording Cowboys from Hell they contemplated cutting it from the final version. The band felt that the song seemed too tame and commercial compared to the album’s other material, particularly the newer songs they wrote in the studio while recording.

Pantera’s manager, Walter O’Brien, convinced them otherwise.

“I knew that Pantera were going to be called the Cowboys from Hell from then on,” he says. “Every great band has a nickname. Bruce Springsteen is the Boss. ZZ Top is that Little Ol’ Band from Texas. Cowboys from Hell was perfect for them. I rarely insist on anything creative from a band, but I just knew it was a massive song. Dimebag put the CFH logo on everything, and he lived that persona.”

Former Pantera bassist Rex Brown joined fellow Pantera alumnus and current Down frontman Philip Anselmo on stage at the Download festival on Sunday at Donington Park in Leicestershire, United Kingdom. They performed the Pantera classic "A New Level."

Anselmo performed at this year's Download with his backing band, the Illegals, featuring guitarist Marzi Montazeri (ex-Superjoint Ritual), drummer José Manuel Gonzales (Warbeast) and bassist Steve Taylor.

Check out fan-filmed footage of the performance here:

Last night at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, former Pantera vocalist Philip Anselmo joined Zakk Wylde and Black Label on stage to perform Pantera's "I'm Broken."

You can check out a fan-filmed video below. Be sure to tell us what you think in the comments or on Facebook!

“We achieved quite a bit of success with Vulgar Display of Power, but we wanted to take our music to another level completely,” Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul told Guitar World about Far Beyond Driven, where "I'm Broken" originally appeared.

“People were expecting us to go the Metallica route and make something like the Black Album that was a little more mainstream and commercial. We didn’t want to do that, and we knew that our fans didn’t want us to do that. So we set out to make the most extreme album of our career.”

The decision seemed like it would be commercial suicide, but it proved to be the opposite. Far Beyond Driven debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 Albums chart upon its release on March 21, 1994.

“We knocked Ace of Bass, Bonnie Raitt and even Soundgarden out of the top of the charts,” bassist Rex Brown proudly recalls. “Magazines like Billboard called us this overnight sensation, but we were a band for the people that had been around a long time. MTV and radio didn’t create us. We built a strong fan base over the years, and our fans came out in numbers and really put us on the map.”

Far Beyond Driven is quite likely the most heavy and extreme album to ever reach the Number One position on the Billboard charts, with later efforts by Tool and Slipknot coming a distant second.

For the rest of this story, check out the June 2014 issue of Guitar World — or continue reading our online excerpt here.

Why should guitarists have all the fun?

GuitarWorld.com recently launched a new readers poll in partnership with Samson: the Greatest Rock Singers of All Time Readers Poll.

We're certain that, even though our core readership is mainly made up of guitarists from different genres, locations and age groups, you — like us — have strong opinions about the skills (or lack thereof) of some of rock's most legendary singers.

And although we had hundreds of rock singers to choose from, we decided to narrow things down to a mere 16 names, all of which were carefully chosen by Guitar World's editorial staff. We took great care in choosing what's essentially a Sweet 16 starting point. Rock singers from every decade, starting with the 1960s, are represented, as are several rock sub-genres.

Here are our 16 rock singers in alphabetical order:

Phil Anselmo, Randy Blythe, Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, James Hetfield, Mick Jagger, Maynard James Keenan, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Plant, Axl Rose and Bon Scott.

From there, we drew singers' names out of a hat (It was, in fact, a Black Sabbath baseball cap) to help us create our opening 16-singer bracket, which is available for your viewing pleasure below. Obviously, none of these of singers are ranked or coming from a previously compiled list, so we chose purely random matchups to have as little impact as possible on the final outcome. We're actually pretty pleased with the way the bracket turned out.

Remember that, as with any poll, sub-genre might occasionally clash against sub-genre, so you'll just need to decide which singer has or had the most to offer within his genre and time period, which one has or had more natural talent or technical skill, which one had the biggest influence on other singers or rock in general — maybe which one was simply the stronger frontman.

Let's get started! As always, you can vote only once per matchup (once per device, that is), and we'll post two or three matchups per week, continuing with today's shootout, Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Down against Freddie Mercury of Queen.

Latest Results

Winner: Chris Cornell (89.47 percent)
Loser: Randy Blythe (10.53 percent)

Today's Samson Greatest Rock Singers Round 1 Matchup (8 of 8)
Phil Anselmo Vs. Freddie Mercury

PHIL ANSELMO

Born: June 30, 1968, New Orleans, Louisiana
Associated Acts: Pantera, Down, Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals
Website:philanselmo.com

Quote: "I tried to take heavy metal ... and balled it up and chopped it in half and really tried to create a new form of energy. I really tried to re-shape extreme music as I see it through my eyes."

FREDDIE MERCURY

Born: September 5, 1946, Stone Town, Zanzibar City, Tanzania
Died: November 24, 1991, Kensington, England
Associated Acts: Queen
Website:freddiemercury.com

Quote: "We're a very expensive group; we break a lot of rules. It's unheard of to combine opera with a rock theme, my dear."

Voting Closed!

Winner: Freddie Mercury (84.93 percent)
Loser: Phil Anselmo (15.07 percent)

Thanks for voting! Check out our current matchup (and every matchup that has taken place so far) right HERE.

The BracketCheck out the latest version of the 16-singer bracket below. We'll update it after each Samson Greatest Rock Singer of All Time matchup.October 11, 2013, Samson Greatest Rock Singers of All Time Readers Poll

A young cancer-stricken Pantera fan named Peyton had one wish: to shred out on "Walk," a classic Pantera tune.

Wednesday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Make-A-Wish Foundation made that wish come true. Peyton got on stage with Phil Anselmo, Pantera's former frontman, and his band the Illegals, and had some serious fun. You can check out a video of the performance below.

Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals are tour now.

Phil Anselmo has released a new music video for one of the tracks — "Bedridden" — from his upcoming solo album, Walk Through Exits Only. Check out the clip below.

Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals’ Walk Through Exits Only is set for release on July 16.

At their June 23 Hellfest show in Clisson, France, Canada's Voivod were joined by a pair of special guests.

In the 12-minute video below, you'll see former Pantera frontman Philip Anselmo join the band for a cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine," one of the many highlights of Floyd's early Syd Barrett era.

Then, at around the 7:06 mark, Voivod are joined by their former bassist, Jason Newsted, for "Voivod."

Check out a professionally shot video of the two songs below.

For his 45th birthday, former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo joined Slayer onstage during their Heavy By the Sea Festival set in Athens, Greece, to cover the Pantera classic "Fucking Hostile."

Check out the video below. Happy belated Bday, Phil! (His birthday was June 30.)

Philip H. Anselmo will hit the road for his first-ever solo tour, "Technicians of Distortion," which kicks off July 31 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

On this tour, Anselmo will be joined by his band, The Illegals (guitarist Marzi Montazeri, bassist Steve Taylor and drummer Jose Manual Gonzalez). Tickets go on sale Thursday, May 23. Visit TheHousecoreRecords.com/ > ARTISTS for ticketing information.

Technicians of Distortion is in support of Anselmo's upcoming solo release, Walk Through Exits Only, due out July 16 (Housecore Records/Megaforce) and will take the group to 16 markets over a three-week period. Warbeast, who are signed to Anselmo's Housecore Record label and just released their new album Destroy (produced by Anselmo), along with industrial-doom and drone-metal one-man band Author and Punisher, will provide support on all dates.

"It is an incredible pleasure to do my first solo tour with my brothers in Warbeast and to introduce the mighty Author and Punisher to the extreme-music audience properly," Anselmo said. "This is a killer program of insane variety, so come out and support the gigs!"

Fans can expect a hardcore, stripped-down production that is focused on a set list that will include all songs on Walk Through Exits Only, as well as lots of extras.

With one additional date to be announced, the confirmed itinerary for the Technicians of Distortion tour is as follows:

• JULY
• 31 Cain's Ballroom, Tulsa, OK

AUGUST
2 Wooly's, Des Moines, IA
3 First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
4 House of Blues, Chicago, IL
6 House of Blues, Cleveland, OH
7 The Intersection, Grand Rapids, MI
9 Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI
10 Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, ONT Canada
11 Heavy MTL Festival, Montreal, QC Canada
13 The Palladium, Worcester, MA
14 Upstate Concert Hall, Clifton Park, NY
16 Best Buy Theatre, New York, NY
17 Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA
18 The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD
20 The Masquerade - Heaven Stage, Atlanta, GA

Texas-based heavy metal band Warbeast recently released a split album with Philip Anselmo titled War of The Gargantuas, featuring two previously unreleased Warbeast tracks — "It" and "Birth of a Psycho" — along with the first-ever solo material released by Anselmo in his 30-year career.

Of course, this album was put out on Anselmo’s own Housecore Records, and as a celebration of the release, Warbeast joined Down on a short US tour last month. Now they are preparing to release their second full-length album.

Just before the Down tour, I caught up with vocalist Bruce Corbitt to discuss all things Warbeast. Read the conversation below, and check out the official Warbeast website for more info.

GUITAR WORLD: Let’s talk about the split-release with Phil Anselmo. It must be a big accomplishment for Warbeast to be on that, specially because Phil hasn’t put out any solo material before.

Yes, it’s a very big thing for Warbeast, and it was part of the idea Philip had when he came up with this thought of doing a split a couple of years ago, not only to give everyone an idea of what’s to come in our upcoming full-length, but he knew it would get more exposure for Warbeast. So yeah, we’re very grateful to be on it.

You said he came up with the idea a couple of years ago. What took so long for the release? Was it a delay on his part in terms of completing the songs?

Yeah, pretty much. Our debut album [Krush The Enemy] had just released at the time, and we were already writing a couple of new songs. Phil was still writing for his solo album and trying to figure out the musicians he was going to get to play on it. It’s just one of those crazy things about working with Phil is, any kind of wild ideas people spell out usually never happen, but a lot of times with Phil and Housecore, they actually come to life.

So he just thought it would be cool if we do this split when he gets his album recorded. So we went and recorded our songs a little over two years ago and there was kind of no timeframe on it. But we decided to have it there, waiting for when Phil finished his album and recorded his stuff. So it was like a long, planned-out thing and it’s a good idea to do stuff like that, you know, to think ahead and be ready when the time comes.

It must have been pretty easy for you to get those songs ready for the split album because, as you said, you already had them written.

Yeah, the band came up with the two songs and I was going to do the lyrics, of course. On one of the songs, I asked Philip if he was interested in getting together and working on the lyrics with me, to team up and write them. He said he would, so I waited till we went down to record. The band was recording their tracks and Phil and me got together and put the lyrics for the song "It." So that was a really cool thing too, to collaborate with Phil on some lyrics. Then our drummer, of course, he plays on Philip’s solo album. So the whole thing is a brotherhood-type of album, and I think it sits together with two different bands. When you listen to it, it’s just a good album, you know?

Warbeast already has a strong following, but for people who are Anselmo fans and don’t know your band, they’ll definitely dig your music.

That’s the thing; we knew they’d be getting the album for Phil, but then Warbeast is on there too, so people can check it out, hopefully. It should get more fans for us if they like what they hear. I can’t express it enough just how grateful we are to be part of it, and I’m excited as anyone else for the new Phil Anselmo solo album, so to be on a release with the first tracks, you can’t beat that!

Speaking of your next full-length album, it’s also supposed to come out very soon. It’s called Destroy, correct?

Yes, sir. It’s going to be out April 2. It’s all finished, recorded, mixed and mastered. We’re just getting the final touches on the layout for the sleeve and the cover and everything. This full-length album is another thing we’re really proud of, and the two songs on the split-release are exclusive to that release, so everyone’s going to get nine brand-new Warbeast tracks on the full-length.

Yes, I was wondering if the songs are going to be different from the split. That’s good to know — so people are actually getting two releases this year from Warbeast.

Yeah, and then there’s also talk about doing a third because we recorded a couple of extra songs when we made the full-length, and we held them back to do a two-sided single thing. In one song I wrote lyrics about my brother, who I lost several years ago. And then Phil and me decided recently to team up again and write lyrics about our brother and bandmate Mike Scaccia, who we lost a few weeks ago. So that could be three releases right there for Warbeast within one year. I’m not sure when that’ll be out, maybe the end of 2013 or early next year.

You talked about the loved ones you've lost, and that’s very tragic, but it must be kind of satisfying to get closure by expressing yourself through your lyrics.

It’s very meaningful to me to be able to do this. My brother’s my hero and the biggest person in my life that I lost, and then Mike was like my most important friend and bandmate that I’ve lost. I’m just blessed to have known both of those guys and this is just my way of honoring them.

You have a US tour coming up in a couple of days. Can people can expect you to play the two new songs as well the old ones?

Actually, we are playing both songs off of the split — some from the debut album, and then we’re playing like over half of the new album, Destroy, even before it comes out just because we believe in the material so much that we think it’s going to go over well even though no one’s had a chance to hear it. We actually did that on the recent tours with Down before this, and there’s just been a great response to all the new material. So the people are going to get a bit of everything that’s been released so far, and some of what’s about to be released. Our set list just keeps getting better the more songs we have in the archives, you know.

On this tour, I’m pretty sure the split album will be on sale, but are there any other items being made specifically for the Anselmo-Warbeast thing or just the CD?

I know they’ll have CDs and vinyls, and I heard that Housecore was making some shirts to sell as well, hopefully with the cover art of the split on it. So they should be able to get us shirts, CDs and vinyl.

On January 16, you’ll be hitting the Key Club in LA. What do you generally feel about playing in LA? I’m sure it must be a good vibe always. I think I saw you open for GWAR in LA a couple of years back.

That’s always a very big highlight for me when I notice that we’re getting to play in LA. For one, I grew up a Los Angeles Rams and a Los Angeles Lakers fan, so I just always had that going. And then we, as in Rigor Mortis, got signed to Capitol and they were in LA. We’ve made a lot of friends in LA, the crowd is really cool, we usually get to go on KNAC and visit some people up there and do the interviews. It’s just always great to play there.

What other shows do you remember from LA?

The first time we played there was when we came through with Destruction, and that was just an intense show with the stage diving and everything. I remember Schmier from Destruction saying, "God, this is the most intense crowd of the entire tour!" And then of course before that, it’s so long since I played there back in 2005 with Rigor Mortis when we did our first reunion. But that tour wasn’t promoted very well and we set it up ourselves. I remember not seeing a lot of people there at the show, but the people that turned up seemed to be glad to finally see Rigor Mortis again. Anything other than that goes back to the '80s when I was first in Rigor Mortis when we came out there a lot, finalized our deal with Capitol Records and went to the Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years premiere and all that. Some good memories there every time.

You mentioned the lack of promotion. These days, the main source of income for metal bands is touring. Are you extra careful now as compared to before in terms of what promoters you go with? You don’t want to travel to a different city and play for a small crowd, right?

We don’t want to, but sometimes it happens, and for that tour I mentioned, we didn’t have a booking agency or anybody. We kind of just lined it up ourselves. I know the club did the best they could or whoever the promoter was, but it just didn’t have the attention we’d get when we’re out on a tour with Down. They have everything already set up with booking agencies and PR people. They’re a big band, so the word just gets out easier for something like this.

The smaller tours are hard because you’ve got to rely on the opening bands, the club and the word of mouth, and you’ve just got to hope that it’s a night when Slayer’s not playing [laughs]. It’s always hard to get people out on a Wednesday or Thursday, and people are hurting financially these days because of the economy and gas prices. So you know, that’s why we’ve been slowly working our way up, and going out with bands like Destruction, Gwar and Down has done wonders for Warbeast.

That’s also a problem with bigger cities — there are usually other shows going on at the same time. You never get an exclusive show in LA or New York.

Right, and we find that out easily when we get to town. It’s hard to sometimes know in advance when you’re booking something. Then we show up and find out who else is playing on the other side of town, and we’re like, "Damn! Too bad we’re not on the same show and too bad we can’t even see the show ourselves!" And when you hear something like that, we think there probably won’t be too many people at our show tonight [laughs]. But then the people that are there are the true loyal fan base. It gets to the point where it doesn’t matter to us whether there are five people or 5,000. We still enjoy getting on stage and we do not change our performance just because the crowd’s smaller. You’ll see us giving everything we’ve got, no matter how many people are there.

Andrew Bansal is a writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, news, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Up till February 2012 he was based in Los Angeles. After that, he had to move to India, but is still carrying on his heavy metal endeavors with the same intensity.

With Phil Anselmo's debut solo album tentatively due sometime in 2013, fans can get an early taste of the former Pantera singer's solo material via a newly announced split EP with Texas thrashers Warbeast.

Titled War of the Gargantuas, the EP will feature two tracks from each artist, and will be released on January 8 via Anselmo's Housecore Records, just in time for the kickoff of the Down/Warbeast West Coast tour on January 11.

“This split is a glimpse into the future of both my solo project and ultimate thrash metallers Warbeast," said Anselmo in an official press release. "The title of the split is War of The Gargantuas and it is fitting on many levels because of our combined love for the '60s Japanese film of the same name, the power of our combined musical output(s) and our humorous affection that plays out within each of our "Gargantuan" personalities."

He continued, "Both Warbeast and myself have full length LP's that will be released shortly after this is released, but this split is unique musically. It is a time capsule; a loud pause ‘til we both release our full length products. Enjoy the destruction of music!"

Down and Warbeast 2013 Tour Dates

1/5 – Fort Worth, TX @ The Rail Club (WARBEAST ONLY, War of the Gargantuas Release Show)
1/11 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live – Ballroom
1/12 – San Antonio, TX @ Backstage Live
1/14 – Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee
1/15 – Las Vegas, NV @ Fremont Country Club
1/16 – West Hollywood, CA @ Key Club
1/18 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim
1/19 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
1/20 – San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom
1/22 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox at the Market
1/23 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
1/24 – Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory Concert House
1/26 – Denver, CO @ The Summit Music Hall
1/28 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
1/29 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
1/30 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart’s
2/1 – Chattanooga, TN @ Track 29

Back in June, Scion A.V. was on-hand at the Scion Rock Fest '12 — which featured performances from Sleep, Exodus, Saint Vitus, Suffocation and more — to document all of the action. Once again, we've teamed up with that most metal of car companies to bring you some killer exclusive content.

Below, you can watch an exclusive interview shot with festival headliners Down, in which they discuss their recent shift to the EP format, the state of the music industry and being champions for underground bands. As an added bonus, we've also got live footage of the NOLA track "Lifer" shot at the festival.

For more great content, be sure to subscribe to Scion A.V.'s YouTube Channel.

Down's new EP, Down IV Part I - The Purple EP, is out now.

Heavy-metal supergroup Down released their new six-song EP, Down IV Part I - The Purple EP (Buy on iTunes), this morning, and frontman Phil Anselmo has something to say about it.

Check out the video below, which features an exclusive greeting from Anselmo, who discusses the process of beginning work on a new Down release. "You look at your body of work," he says, "and you hear the songs, and you say, 'Well, what more can be done within the genre?'"

The Purple EP is the first of four planned EPs from Down, who seem to prefer EPs to albums, at least for the time being. Their latest full-length album is 2007's Down III: Over the Under (Buy on iTunes). You can stream the new EP for free right here.

Keep up with Down at their official website and Facebook page.

Heavy-metal supergroup Down will release their new EP, simply titled The Purple EP, next week. But why wait? Stream the full think in the SoundCloud player below, courtesy of Billboard.

The Purple EP is the first of four planned EPs from Down, who appear to have shunned, at least temporarily, the album format after 2007's Down III: Over the Under (buy on iTunes).

Down IV Part I – The Purple EP is out September 18.