Pantera, "Mouth for War" [Official Video]
When I was a metalhead twelve-year-old, I thought that the guitar riff on "Mouth for War," the opening track off 1992's Vulgar Display of Power, the sixth studio album by Pantera, was far and away the most badass riff I'd ever heard. It also benefits from being extremely simple. A beginner to the guitar won't have any difficulty learning it if they are that way inclined. I played it over and over for probably six months at least. In terms of hellacious heavy metal mythology, I suppose that in hindsight it helps make everything seem all the more badass, or at least grisly, that Pantera's formidable guitarist Darrell Lance Abbott A.K.A. Dimebag Darrell—he was a drug dealer before making it big—was shot and killed onstage by a mentally unstable disgruntled fan and former Marine in Columbus, Ohio. Police shot the assassin shortly thereafter. Believe it or not, all of this occurred on the twenty-fourth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon.
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