"Walk"

Pantera - Walk (1992)

/Are you talking to me?/




A really simple riff fuels this song. Guitarist Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott starting playing the riff during a warm up and drummer Vinnie Paul added his part on the wall while someone recorded it so that the band could remember it later for recording. The bass and guitar parts are just doubling each other for most of the song, and it's the same riff over and over. It kind of sounds like walking if you listen to it. The song is in 12/8 time which means you can hear the triplets over the standard rock 4/4 time signature. The drums do a lot of doubling as well, just adding layers of sound and noise to the mix. Vocalist Anselmo's vicious attack on  posers, back-stabbers, false friends and others with no self respect is so aggressive and violent it leaps over the almost calm-by-comparison band riff. It also reminds me of De Niro in Taxi Driver.

The guitar solo is a bolt of lightning from out of nowhere. "Dimebag" was known as a great guitar player, but this song seemed like it was set to me. We had the riff, we had the vocals, the whole band is just churning it out, and I was expecting an almost punk-short 3 minute anger session. But the guitar had other plans. In fact, right at three minutes the lead guitar just starts going off. Fast, high, less distorted (but still distorted) and very melodic, this thirty second guitar solo is not as blistering as other guitar solos, but taken with the rest of the song it can be viewed as the fight, the confrontation, and eventual victory over the posers the song is talking to.