Reinventing the Steel

Reinventing the Steel is the ninth and latest studio album by American heavy metal band Pantera, released on March 21, 2000[1] through Elektra Records and East West Records. This was the last studio album Pantera released before their nineteen-year breakup from November 2003 to July 2022, and it is the band's final album to feature the Abbott brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, before their deaths in 2004 and 2018, respectively.

Reinventing the Steel
Studio album by
Pantera
ReleasedMarch 21, 2000 (2000-03-21)
Recorded1999–2000
StudioChasin Jason Studios, Arlington, Texas
GenreGroove metal
Length43:53
Label
Producer
Pantera chronology
Official Live: 101 Proof
(1997)		 Reinventing the Steel
(2000)		 The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits!
(2003)
Pantera studio album chronology
The Great Southern Trendkill
(1996)		 Reinventing the Steel
(2000)
Singles from Reinventing the Steel
  1. "Revolution Is My Name"
    Released: January 23, 2000
  2. "Goddamn Electric"
    Released: March 17, 2000
  3. "I'll Cast a Shadow"
    Released: June 16, 2000
  4. "Hole in the Sky"
    Released: November 21, 2000 (Japan)

Background

Reinventing the Steel was produced by the Abbott brothers in addition to Sterling Winfield, making it Pantera's first studio album since 1988's Power Metal not to be produced by Terry Date.

In Australia, a two-disc "Tour Edition" of the album was released. The first disc consists of the album proper while the second is an unofficial hits compilation.

The album was reissued in October 2020 with extra discs including a new mix by Date and unreleased tracks to honor the album's 20th anniversary.[2][3]

Unlike other Pantera releases, two B-sides were recorded during the Reinventing the Steel sessions, those being "Avoid the Light" and "Immortally Insane", found on the Dracula 2000 and Heavy Metal 2000, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtracks, respectively.

Lyrics and style

Reinventing the Steel contains lyrics mostly about the band itself, as on "We'll Grind that Axe for a Long Time" (where the band members tell about how they have kept it "true" throughout the years, while many of their peers "sucked up for the fame") and "I'll Cast a Shadow" (about Pantera's influence on the genre). There are also songs about their fans, like "Goddamn Electric" and "You've Got to Belong to It". "Goddamn Electric" mentions Black Sabbath and Slayer, two of Pantera's main influences. The solo for "Goddamn Electric" was recorded by Kerry King in a bathroom after Slayer performed at Ozzfest in Dallas.[4] The band members dedicated Reinventing the Steel to their fans who they viewed as their "brothers and sisters".

Artwork

The cover art is by Scott Caliva (1967–2003), a friend of Pantera lead singer Phil Anselmo. Caliva took the photo of a partygoer at Anselmo's house jumping through a bonfire clutching a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon whiskey. The bottle is pixelated on the cover so the label would not be visible, to avoid copyright infringement.

The 20th Anniversary Edition cover art was only made with the steel marking background, along with the logo and the album name similar to their 1990 album, Cowboys from Hell.

Reception

Commercial performance
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[5]
Alternative Press[6]
The Austin Chronicle[7]
Blabbermouth.net8/10[8]
Chronicles of Chaos7/10[9]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[10]
NME6/10[6]
Q[6]
Robert Christgau(dud)[11]
Rolling Stone[12]

Reinventing the Steel reached number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart, number 8 on the Top Canadian Albums chart, and number 5 on the Top Internet Albums chart. It held its position in the Billboard 200 for over 12 weeks. The record sold more than 161,000 copies in its first week of release.[13] The album's fifth track, "Revolution Is My Name", reached number 28 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on May 2, 2000,[14] however, it has yet to reach platinum status, making it Pantera's only major-label studio album not to reach sales of 1,000,000.

In a 2022 interview with Gibson TV, Rex Brown blamed the album's lacklustre success compared to the band's previous albums on the dominance of the nu metal genre at the time of its release.[15]

Review scores

Rolling Stone (5/25/00, p. 73) – 3.5 stars out of 5 – "Metal-revivalist....relying on the genre's primal elements of rage and analog noise...chopped up with squealing dissonance....brutal enough to please underground purists and familiar enough for weekend headbangers."[12]

Entertainment Weekly (3/24/00, p. 102) – "...resumes their scorched-earth policy with vigor....dropping aural anvils [along] with a dash of inventiveness..." – Rating: B+[10]

Q magazine (6/00, p. 112) – 3 stars out of 5 – "Pantera's attempt to upgrade [Judas Priest's] British Steel-era pure metal spirit....unequivocal heavy metalness."[6]

Alternative Press (7/00, pp. 108–9) – 5 out of 5 – "An undiluted, unvarnished slab of riffs paying distinct homage to Judas Priest's British Steel, and not just in a titular sense, but in basic song construction."[6]

CMJ (4/3/00, p. 32) – "Crammed with everything they've used to revolutionize metal....so old-school it could have been easily made in between the quartet's back-to-back classics."[6]

NME (4/15/00, p. 34) – 6 out of 10 – "An unfashionably old-school metal album....it's Pantera's bid to herald the rebirth of bullet-belt, cut-off denim metal....It's a solid album, oozing drunk-as-hell metal spirit."[6]

Accolades

In the 2000 Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards, the album was voted "Album of the Year" and "Album Cover of the Year" (tying with Iron Maiden's Brave New World for the latter), while the single "Revolution Is My Name" won "Song of the Year".[16]

"Revolution Is My Name" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2001, but lost to Deftones' "Elite".

The album was ranked at No. 2 on Guitar World's Readers Poll for "The Top 10 Guitar Albums of 2000".[17]

A section of "Death Rattle" was used for the 2001 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called "Pre-Hibernation Week".[18]

Track listing

All credits adapted from the original CD issue.[19]

All tracks are written by Pantera

No.TitleLength
1."Hellbound"2:41
2."Goddamn Electric"4:56
3."Yesterday Don't Mean Shit"4:19
4."You've Got to Belong to It"4:13
5."Revolution Is My Name"5:15
6."Death Rattle"3:17
7."We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time"3:44
8."Uplift"3:45
9."It Makes Them Disappear"6:21
10."I'll Cast a Shadow"5:22
Total length:43:53
Japanese edition bonus track
No.TitleLength
11."Hole in the Sky" (Black Sabbath cover)4:17
Total length:48:10

20th Anniversary Edition

Released in October 2020, The 20th Anniversary Edition of Reinventing the Steel includes re-mixes of the tracklist done by longtime Pantera producer Terry Date, as well as singles that were previously not released on any studio albums also remixed by Terry Date, radio edits of album tracks, and instrumental rough mixes of the album's original tracks.

All tracks are written by Pantera (except where noted)

Disc one
No.TitleLength
1."Hellbound (2020 Terry Date mix)"2:41
2."Goddamn Electric (2020 Terry Date mix)"4:56
3."Yesterday Don't Mean Shit (2020 Terry Date mix)"4:19
4."You've Got to Belong to It (2020 Terry Date mix)"4:13
5."Revolution Is My Name (2020 Terry Date mix)"5:15
6."Death Rattle (2020 Terry Date mix)"3:17
7."We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time (2020 Terry Date mix)"3:44
8."Uplift (2020 Terry Date mix)"3:45
9."It Makes Them Disappear (2020 Terry Date mix)"6:21
10."I'll Cast a Shadow (2020 Terry Date mix)"5:22
Disc two
No.TitleLength
1."Hellbound (2020 Remaster)"2:41
2."Goddamn Electric (2020 Remaster)"4:56
3."Yesterday Don't Mean Shit (2020 Remaster)"4:19
4."You've Got to Belong to It (2020 Remaster)"4:13
5."Revolution Is My Name (2020 Remaster)"5:15
6."Death Rattle (2020 Remaster)"3:17
7."We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time (2020 Remaster)"3:44
8."Uplift (2020 Remaster)"3:45
9."It Makes Them Disappear (2020 Remaster)"6:21
10."I'll Cast a Shadow (2020 Remaster)"5:22
11."Goddamn Electric (Radio Mix)"4:57
12."Revolution Is My Name (Radio Edit) [2020 Remaster]"4:10
13."I'll Cast a Shadow (Radio Edit)"3:55
14."Goddamn Electric (Radio Edit)"4:14
Disc three
No.TitleMusicLength
1."Avoid the Light" 6:27
2."Immortally Insane" 5:11
3."Cat Scratch Fever"
3:49
4."Hole in the Sky"
  • Black Sabbath
4:13
5."Electric Funeral"
5:43
6."Hellbound (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 2:41
7."Goddamn Electric (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 4:56
8."Yesterday Don't Mean Shit (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 4:19
9."You've Got to Belong to It (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 4:13
10."Revolution Is My Name (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 5:15
11."Death Rattle (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 3:17
12."We'll Grind That Axe for a Long Time (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 3:44
13."Uplift (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 3:45
14."It Makes Them Disappear (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 6:21
15."I'll Cast a Shadow (Instrumental Rough Mix)" 5:22
Total length:172:56

Personnel

Pantera

Additional personnel

Technical personnel

  • Sterling Winfield – production, engineering, mixing
  • Vinnie Paul – production, engineering, mixing
  • Dimebag Darrell – production
  • Howie Weinberg – mastering at Masterdisk, New York
  • Recorded at Chasin Jason Studios, Arlington, TX[19]

Charts
Chart (2000) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[20] 2
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[21] 26
Canadian Albums Chart[22] 8
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[23] 55
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[24] 3
French Albums (SNEP)[25] 21
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[26] 18
Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)[27] 12
Irish Albums (IRMA)[28] 31
Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)[29] 33
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[30] 40
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[31] 10
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[32] 14
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[33] 27
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[34] 84
UK Album Chart[35] 33
US Billboard 200[22] 4

Singles
Song Chart (2000) Peak
position
"Revolution Is My Name" US Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks 28
UK Rock Chart 20
"I'll Cast a Shadow" 15

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[36] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. "pantera.com". Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  2. "PANTERA: 'Reinventing the Steel' Expanded 20th-Anniversary Reissue Details Revealed". September 10, 2020.
  3. "Pantera Official Store". Pantera Official Store. Retrieved September 29, 2022.
  4. "5 Things You Didn't Know About Pantera's 'Reinventing the Steel'". March 21, 2018.
  5. Huey, Steve. "Reinventing the Steel – Pantera". AllMusic. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  6. "Pantera – Reinventing the Steel CD Album". CD Universe. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
  7. Renshaw, Jerry (May 5, 2000). "Review: Pantera Reinventing the Steel (EastWest) – Music". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
  8. Krgin, Borivoj. "Pantera – Reinventing the Steel". Blabbermouth.net. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  9. Schwarz, Paul (August 12, 2000). "Pantera – Reinventing the Steel : Review". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
  10. Hiltbrand, David (March 24, 2000). "Reinventing the Steel Review". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 13, 2012.
  11. Christgau, Robert. "CG: Pantera". RobertChristgau.com. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
  12. Diehl, Matt (May 25, 2000). "Pantera: Reinventing The Steel : Music Reviews". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
  13. "Untitled". Pantera Net. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
  14. Pantera at the RIAA's Gold & Platinum Program database
  15. "Pantera's Rex Brown Blames Nu-Metal for 'Reinventing the Steels Lukewarm Reception". Revolver. December 18, 2022. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
  16. Metal Edge, June 2001
  17. "Readers Poll Results: The Top 10 Guitar Albums of 2000 | Guitar World". www.guitarworld.com. Archived from the original on January 3, 2012.
  18. "Remember when Pantera were featured on that episode of Spongebob?". Alternative Press. March 30, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
  19. Reinventing the Steel (CD booklet). Pantera. Warner Music Group. 2000. p. 2. 7559-62451-2.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  20. "Australiancharts.com – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  21. "Austriancharts.at – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  22. "Reinventing the Steel [Amended Version] – Pantera". Billboard.
  23. "Dutchcharts.nl – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  24. "Pantera: Reinventing The Steel" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  25. "Lescharts.com – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  26. "Offiziellecharts.de – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  27. "Album Top 40 slágerlista – 2000. 15. hét" (in Hungarian). MAHASZ. Retrieved November 26, 2021.
  28. "Irish-charts.com – Discography Pantera". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  29. "Classifiche". Musica e Dischi (in Italian). Retrieved May 27, 2022. Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Artista" field, search "Pantera".
  30. Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005 (in Japanese). Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
  31. "Charts.nz – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  32. "Norwegiancharts.com – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  33. "Swedishcharts.com – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  34. "Swisscharts.com – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Hung Medien. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  35. Zywietz, Tobias. "Chart Log UK: Rodney P. – The Pussycat Dolls". Zobbel. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  36. "American album certifications – Pantera – Reinventing The Steel". Recording Industry Association of America.
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