Pantera
American heavy metal band
Pantera () is an American heavy metal band formed in Arlington, Texas, in 1981 by the Abbott brothers (guitarist Dimebag Darrell and drummer Vinnie Paul), and currently composed of vocalist Phil Anselmo, bassist Rex Brown, and touring musicians Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante. The group's best-known lineup consisted of the Abbott brothers along with Brown and Anselmo, who joined in 1982 and 1986, respectively. The band is credited for developing and popularizing the subgenre of groove metal in the 1990s. Regarded as one of the most successful and influential bands in heavy metal history, Pantera has sold around 20 million records worldwide and has received four Grammy nominations.
Having started as a glam metal band, Pantera released three albums in the mid-1980s with lead vocalist Terry Glaze (Metal Magic, Projects in the Jungle, and I Am the Night), with little success. Looking for a new and heavier sound, Pantera recruited Anselmo in 1986 and released Power Metal in 1988. They secured a record deal with major label Atco the following year. Their fifth album (which the band has since declared to be their official debut album), Cowboys from Hell (1990), popularized the groove metal genre, while its follow-up Vulgar Display of Power (1992) achieved an even heavier sound and increased their popularity. The subsequent seventh studio album, Far Beyond Driven (1994), debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.
Tensions began to surface among the band members when Anselmo, reeling from severe back problems brought on by years of intense on-stage performances, began growing distant from his bandmates in 1995, eventually becoming addicted to heroin as a result of his pain issues (he almost died from an overdose in July 1996).
“Pantera” enters the record as american heavy metal band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pantera, American and heavy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q180880. VIAF identifies the subject as 140862434. The Library of Congress control number is n92037507. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1982, 1986 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pantera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.