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 on October 20,2020,with extra discs including a new mix by Date and unreleased tracks to honor the album's 20th anniversary. [4] [5]
Unlike other Pantera releases,two B-sides were recorded during the Reinventing the Steel sessions. The B-sides are "Avoid the Light" and "Immortally Insane",found on the Dracula 2000 and Heavy Metal 2000 ,and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtracks,respectively.
Singer Phil Anselmo named Reinventing the Steel as his favorite Pantera album. [6]
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 on July 13,1999. [7] 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 trademark 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
Critical reception
The album was generally well received upon release,though reviews were less enthusiastic than on their previous albums. Rolling Stone gave the album a score of 3.5/5,and called it "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." [15] Entertainment Weekly stated that it "...resumes their scorched-earth policy with vigor....dropping aural anvils [along] with a dash of inventiveness..." [13]
Q magazine gave it 3 out of 5 stars and said it was "Pantera's attempt to upgrade [ Judas Priest's] British Steel -era pure metal spirit." [9] Alternative Press echoed this sentiment,calling it "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." [9] AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey gave the album 3 out of 5 stars,and stated "Reinventing the Steel is a nonstop assault on the senses,offering no respite from the intensity until the album has stopped playing. Yet somehow,it comes off as a cut below their best albums;perhaps it's that the band's sound lacks the sense of freshness that sparked Cowboys from Hell,Vulgar Display of Power,and Far Beyond Driven." [16]
Reinventing the Steel debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and number five on the Top Internet Albums,selling 161,105 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. On its second week,it fell to number 24,selling only 59,962 copies,a 62.8% drop in sales. In total,the album only appeared on that chart for 12 weeks. On May 2,the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),denoting 500,000 units sold. [17] 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. According to Nielsen SoundScan,the album has sold 593,000 copies domestically as of October 2003. It also debuted at number eight on the Top Canadian Albums chart.
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. [18]
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