Heavy Metal Monday: Dimebag Darrell, THE HITZ

Everybody’s had a case of the Mondays at some point or other, but in order to try and lift you out of the darkness and bring you into the light, we’re starting a new feature: “Heavy Metal Monday,” wherein we deliver a reminder of an item that’s been in our catalog for awhile or an announcement of a release that’s arriving soon. To kick things off, however, we’re going in a slightly different direction by mentioning an EP that slipped into release late in 2017 but which we somehow never managed to write about. Blame it on the holidays if you must, but at least now we’re here to tell you about a five-track release by a late, great musician best known as a member of Pantera.

Dimebag Darrell’s THE HITZ was initially released on Record Store Day 2017 as a 12-inch vinyl EP, but with only 4,000 copies pressed, it was effectively a Christmas gift to fans that it was released digitally so soon thereafter. Those familiar with DIMEVISION VOL. 1: THAT’S THE FUN I HAVE would have heard snippets of these five songs, but the vinyl EP was the first time that any of them had been released commercially in their entirety. It’s also worth noting, however, that DIMEVISION VOL. 2: ROLL WITH IT OR GET ROLLED OVER was released on the same day as THE HITZ, and it also featured those five songs, along with hours of archival video footage of Darrell in action.

If you were a Pantera fan, then you owe it to yourself to check out THE HITZ and hear what sort of songs Darrell was doing when the band wasn’t keeping him occupied. It’s a different side of Dimebag, and it’s one that – as a result of his untimely death – we didn’t get to hear nearly enough of.

LISTEN HERE.