Reinventing the Steel
Studio album by Pantera
Released	March 14, 2000 (2000-03-14)
Recorded	1999–2000
Genre	Groove metal
Length	43:50
Label	East West
Producer	Dimebag Darrell, Vinnie Paul, Sterling Winfield
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Rolling Stone link
Pantera chronology
Official Live: 101 Proof (1997) Reinventing the Steel (2000) The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits! (2003)

Reinventing the Steel is the ninth studio album by heavy metal band Pantera. It was released through East West Records, on March 14, 2000. It is the last album Pantera released.

Album information

It reached #4 on the Billboard Top 200 charts, #8 on the Top Canadian Albums chart, and #5 on the Top Internet Albums chart. The album's fifth track, "Revolution Is My Name", reached #28 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks.

In Australia a 2 disc Tour Edition of the album was released. It contained RTS as disc 1, and Unofficial Hits Cd as disc 2. This item is now a collector's item.

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've 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." The band members dedicated Reinventing the Steel to their fans, whom they viewed as their brothers and sisters.

An edited version of the song "Death Rattle" was used on an episode of Spongebob Squarepants titled "Pre-Hibernation Week"

Reception

Professional reviews:

• 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."

• 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+

• Q (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."

• 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."

• 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."

• 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."

Track listing

• All tracks by Pantera unless noted otherwise.

1. "Hellbound" – 2:41
2. "Goddamn Electric" – 4:58
3. "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" – 4:19
4. "You've Got to Belong to It" – 4:13
5. "Revolution Is My Name" – 5:19
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" – 6:22
10. "I'll Cast a Shadow" – 5:22

Credits

• Phil Anselmo – Vocals
• Rex Brown – Bass
• "Dimebag" Darrell – Guitar/Producer
• Vinnie Paul – drums/Producer
• Kerry King – Outro guitar on "Goddamn Electric"

Charting positions

Album

Singles