Cowboys from Hell

The material was written in 1988 and 1989 and demoed on a self-produced eleven-track tape in 1989. The first-choice producer, Max Norman, left to make Lynch Mob's debut, and the band chose Terry Date, who had worked with Soundgarden, Metal Church and Overkill. They recorded the drums first, then Darrell's guitar, then Brown's bass with guitars, and fixed slight timing errors by tape editing; Overkill's The Years of Decay shaped Darrell's guitar tone. Anselmo said in 2010 that there was no Pro Tools, no tricks or whistles.

Mark Ross said that by the end of the first song, his jaw was on the floor. AllMusic called it the band's breakthrough, largely driven by its rhythm section. Ozzy Osbourne listed it among his ten favorite metal albums in 2017, and Guitar World ranked it 11th on its 2006 list of the 100 greatest guitar albums. Its singles were "Cowboys from Hell" and "Psycho Holiday", both in 1990, and a 20th anniversary reissue came out on September 14, 2010.