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Phil Anselmo To Release Pantera Christmas Album

Last week Pantera’s rarely heard Christmas album was leaked online, amidst speculation that frontman Phil Anselmo is finally ready to resurrect this oft rumoured yuletide release. In a recent interview, Anselmo described the huge impact the season of giving had on Pantera when they were together, describing how seasonal cheer implicitly shaped their earlier records, urging them to duplicate some of their groundbreaking songs and translate them to a more Christmassy feel. These tracks were largely unknown as they were buried before the band’s ultimate demise. Themes of a religious nature already permeate the muddy waters of the self proclaimed kings of metal, explicitly stated in songs like Heresy and Hellbound, or subtly embedded in the sounds of this old-school, as yet unreleased album, in songs Primal Concrete Elf, We’ll Grind That Axe for Jesus, and Resurrection.

Pantera’s religious images have always leant more towards the satanic than the nativity. Their music has expressed the excruciating isolation of addiction and rage of post-glam heavy metal, their albums constantly shaped by themes of redemption and death. These old Christmas recordings, buried in the attic of Vinnie Paul, show the softer side of Pantera. The album combines the ferocity of the blasting with the brutality of the shredding, but with a new sonic depth added by the incorporation of sleigh bells into the song Mistletoe and Methadone, as well as the first cover of Jingle Bells to involve double kicks. This album sets the benchmark for metal Christmas albums, and is more daring and complex than other releases like it; Slayer’s ‘Tis the Seasons of the Abyss , Poison’s Poison Christmas, and Hatebreed’s It’s Christmas Let’s Do Windmills.

Have a very metal Christmas.

Track List:
1. Mistletoe and Methadone
2. Goddamn Santa
3. We’ll Grind that Axe for Jesus
4. Good friends and a Bottle of Eggnog
5. Primal Concrete Elf
6. Psycho Holiday
7. Resurrection

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