Vulgar Display of Power - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

In 1991, Pantera returned to Pantego Sound Studio to record their second release under Atco, titled Vulgar Display of Power. The album was produced by Terry Date who specializes in the rock and metal genres, he had previously worked with the band on Cowboys from Hell and went on to produce the band's following two albums, Far Beyond Driven (1994) and The Great Southern Trendkill (1996). Before Terry Date came in to work on the album, the band had demoed three tracks, "A New Level", "Regular People (Conceit)" and "No Good (Attack the Radical)". The rest of the songs were written in the studio with little preproduction and demoing.

After being in the studio for two months, Pantera were invited to open for Metallica and AC/DC at the 1991 Monsters of Rock music concert in Moscow, Russia. The concert was free and took place at Tushino airfield on September 28, 1991. Behind the scenes footage from the show was featured on the band's home video release, titled Vulgar Video (1993). This was also included on the DVD release 3 Vulgar Videos from Hell (1999) along with the concert recordings of "Cowboys From Hell", "Psycho Holiday" and "Primal Concrete Sledge". Following the show, the band returned to the studio to continue work on the album. The band travelled to New York City to master the album at Masterdisk. Although guitarist Darrell Abbott was credited on the album with nickname "Diamond Darrell", during the recording of the album he had dropped that nickname and assumed "Dimebag Darrell", and bassist Rex Brown dropped the pseudonym "Rexx Rocker".