Neil Daniels - Reinventing Metal: The True Story of Pantera
Backbeat Books
http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Metal-Pantera-Tragically-Dimebag/dp/1480341037

 Rating: B

British rock scribe Neil Daniels is back with his take on the Heavy Metal icons Pantera and the short life of their guitarist Dimebag Darrell.  While this one is short on actual interviews with the members of Pantera themselves, it is an in-depth behind the scenes look at the band from their earliest days, through their demise, and beyond, and features many people, including ex-band members, roadies and friends.

This is an  exciting behind the scenes look at the band that changed Metal both musically, and historically.  Fans worship the band, while detractors point to how the band morphed from spandex rockers to Metal Heads in order to get gain a record deal.  The truth is somewhere in the middle and Daniels does a good job of uncovering the many facets that make up Pantera.

The book really explores the early days of the band well, ands digs into the personalities of the individual band members, seen through the eyes of those that were hanging around them at the time.  The book works on many levels and was, I would guess, a chore to write, as Pantera likes to keep their early past in the past, to the point of hardly acknowledging their non-Metal albums. 

The bottom line here is that Neil Daniels has done it again, creating an interesting read from the first days of the band to the final moments that Dimebag spent on stage.  

I am not even a fan of Pantera and I found this one to be very interesting. 

By Jeb Wright