Riff Police! Pull Over! #79: Killswitch Enagage Vs Pantera!

When Philip H. Anselmo spoke to Loudwire Magazine in 2014 about the meaning behind “Becoming” from the seventh studio album by Pantera, he said “The most popular heavy metal bands in the world at that time were, in my estimate and definitely all of our estimates, playing the game. … They had reached this pinnacle; now they were kind of tapering off and writing more commercial stuff, whereas we realized our strong point, once again, was sticking to heavy metal and making it as heavy as our style would allow. Therefore, with ‘Becoming’, it is what it says. We were becoming. Honestly, we had arrived.”

Released back in 1994 at the height of the Grunge era and in follow up to the highly critically acclaimed “Vulgar Display Of Power“, the Terry Date produced “Far Beyond Driven” took things in a heavier direction. Utilizing a Digitech Whammy for the first time in a solo from Dimebag Darrell on a Pantera album and an odd tuning between C# and D-tuning, it’s often seen as a hard song to learn right. But in Westfield Massachusetts are found Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel, otherwise known as the guitarist duo in Metalcore heroes Killswitch Engage. In listening to “Life to Lifeless” from their major label debut “Alive or Just Breathing“, you might find something familiar about it. Influenced? Without a doubt. Who wouldn’t be? It’s Pantera for goodness sake!