Pantera

If there’s a single image that summarizes what Pantera were all about, it’s the fist throttling some poor sucker’s face that adorns the cover of their 1992 landmark album Vulgar Display of Power.

The unapologetically defiant Texans were peerless in their personification of heavy-metal aggression both onstage and off.

Prior to their 2003 breakup, Pantera unleashed a string of punishing and profoundly influential records that serve as the blueprint for groove metal, a uniquely American fusion of thrash’s violent shredder ethos and the greasy, rugged swagger of ’70s hard rock.