Saturday Shuffle: Pantera, Metallica, Adler, BLS, Black Sabbath

Some killer live stuff from Pantera and some new stuff from familiar faces this week:

Pantera, "A New Level." From the bootleg Black Tooth (1998).  The Black Tooth bootleg is perhaps the best-known by Pantera and far more interesting than their official live record. Phil Anselmo is obviously trashed as he rambles from the stage, but it makes his performances that much more intense. We get a warts-and-all Pantera performance that’s actually a pretty strong show despite Phil’s condition. “A New Level” was never one of my favorite Pantera tracks, but they rip it here.

Review: Adler, "Back from the Dead"

Drummer Steven Adler has built a fair bit of legend in hard rock circles, but for all the wrong reasons. Adler, you may recall, was the guy who was kicked out of Guns n’ Roses because of his drug problem. That takes some real effort.

All these years later, Adler, by all accounts, has his act cleaned up and his life back under control. He’s teamed up with three younger musicians who appear to be cut from the cloth of modern rock radio in hopes of building some legend in a different way with his new outfit Adler.

Vocalist Jack Bunton and guitarist Lonny Paul wrote most of the material for the record, which was co-produced by Adler and Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson. The combination works just as you hope it would, producing songs that could put the band on modern rock radio, but still have some ties to Adler’s glitzy 1980s hard-rock past.