Review: St. Anger

My Rating: 6

Track list & Lyrics
Fan rating of album
Cover Art

My notes/review:

This was a cheap album when released on June 05, 2003 for only $10. For that amount you got a lot. In addition to the 11 track (75 minute) album, you get a DVD of them rehearsing all 11 tracks. Rob Trujillo is playing with them during these rehearsals. A lot of albums these days come with a bonus DVD but, most of those contain just a music video or one live song; this contains a full 80 minutes of footage/music. Pretty nice.

The best bonus included with this album by Metallica is a special CD-key which is needed to access MetallicaVault.com. On this site, Metallica posts free MP3's which you can download. They originally posted 3 concerts: one from 1994, 1996, and 1998. 5 more have since been added bringing the total to 8. All of these are high-quality sound-board recordings. They are a really great bonus for Metallica fans. It's 833 MB (115 files) of MP3's so it may take a while to download if you have a slow connection.

All these bonuses are great, but what's really important is how good the new songs are. A lot of people have commented that this album "sucks ass" or is the "biggest piece of shit ever." The last review on this page is one of these difavorable reviews (it actually contains some good arguements). Other people seem to really like the album and liken it to older Metallica albums. The first two reviews below hold this view. I disagree with both views. It is not the worst thing I have ever heard but it is no where near comparable to the old albums. I would have to say it is the worst Metallica album or at least tied with Reload. I'm sure I'll listen to this album just as rarely as I listen to Reload.

Some people have described St. Anger as thrash metal. It is much harder/rougher and less structured than other Metallica albums. A lot of people don't like this type of heavy metal hence their reffering to this album as a the shittiest album ever. All these people would prefer something more melodic. I too would like something more melodic/varied. At times this album just sounds like a bunch of noise. It isn't noise, but thats how it feels when the songs are so repetitive. There isn't a lot of variation within a song like there is in older Metallica songs. In addition, a lot of the songs sound very familiar; this is probably why Geeker suggests in the last review that they only use 3 chords.

Anyone who compares St. Anger to Metallica's earlier material has never listened to Metallica's old stuff. The first two reviews below liken St. Anger to Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. I have also read reviews comparing it to Kill 'em All. All three of those albums are much better than St. Anger - there is no comparision. The songs on the first 3 Metallica albums were better structured and better sounding. Where there is monotonous repetition on St. Anger, there is variety and progression on the other three. There were also guitar solos on the first 3 albums. I don't remember hearing any solos on St. Anger.

Another big problem I have with St. Anger is James's vocals. Now I usually don't care about lyrics - the instruments are much more important to me and the lyrics are just there to give you something to follow along to. For me to like a song, the lyrics just need to be decent; however, if the lyrics are exceptionally bad, it makes the song worse. This is the case on songs such as Frantic which contains the lyrics: "Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock/Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock/My lifestyle determines my deathstyle." What the fuck is "tick tick tick tick tick tick tock?" It's shitty lyrics thats what it is. There aren't any other lyrics as bad as this, but you may notice some other bad lyrics throughout the album. Not all the lyrics are bad; in some places, the lyrics are pretty good.

As I said, the instruments aren't that great, so bad lyrics like can make average songs worse. Just to reinforce whats wrong with the instruments: there's no solos and little variation. Also, while the bass and James's rythm guitar are fine, Kirk's lead guitar and Lar's druming aren't as good as they have been in the past. The best way to describe the drumming might be over-done. The lead guitar is just awful (non-existant); Kirk might as well have left with Jason.

Here's some info I found on why the album is the way it is:

So far on the tour, Metallica have only played two songs from their new album, St. Anger, the title track and "Frantic." There's a reason for that. The musical passages were recorded in segments during jam sessions and were later cut and pasted to form complete songs. Recreating many of them live will require time and practice.
"Everybody's like, 'Why don't you play more than two songs from the album?' " Ulrich said. "It's like, 'Uh, as soon as we learn them we will.' "

Basically, they just threw a bunch of shit together and released it as an album.

The better songs on the album include "St. Anger", "Some Kind of Monster", "Shoot Me Again", "The Unnamed Feeling", and "All Within My Hands". One way to describe this album is not good, but certainly not godawful.

This is an average album. Most people will not like it and should not bother with buying it unless they are long time fans. I only rated this album on the music; if I were to include the bonuses I would raise the score to a 7 or 7.5 because of the bonus MP3's. The downloadable MP3's are a really nice touch and made this album worth the $10 I paid.

From Jaan Uhelszki (Amazon.com):

Never underestimate the regenerative powers of Metallica. Following the stripped-down Load and Re-Load, they've returned to the raw, vitriolic savagery of their earlier canon, using 1984's Ride the Lightning as a template for St. Anger. The title track provides the psychic lynchpin of the album by combining the bombast and defiance of the band's earliest high-water marks with more deliberate lyrics and emotional nakedness. Equally cathartic is "Some Kind of Monster," a lumbering beast of a song that declares, "This is the voice of silence no more." Despite that claim, there's an economy to these lyrics; James Hetfield's raw-toothed growl only occasionally punctuates the menacing soundscapes. In fact, "Dirty Windows," the standout track here, is a shimmering five-minute instrumental that's free of the baroque trappings that sometimes clutter the Metallica landscape.

From VH1.com:

While LOAD and its sequel RELOAD, Metallica's final studio offerings of the '90s, found the band expanding their approach in what fans called "maturation" and detractors called "mellowing out," the band's first album of the 21st century is a powerful retrenchment and call-to-arms for the heavy metal faithful. Not since the bygone days of MASTER OF PUPPETS (and perhaps not even then) has Metallica sounded this furiously unrelenting.

There's virtually no letup from the frenetic musical mayhem of the appropriately titled ST. ANGER, and nary a power ballad in sight, as the guitars blare and drums rage from one gut-assaulting tune into the next at a breakneck pace. One is reminded of the pure sonic fury of vintage Motorhead, the only band before Metallica to convincingly combine metal tonalities with punk energy. The brilliantly clear production is a blessing that maximizes every bone-crunching riff and jackhammer drum hit for an intensified sucker-punch that will leave even longtime fans reeling with the sheer heaviness of it all. ST. ANGER is surely one of the most effective metal albums of the early '00s, and a bracing lesson for all the nu-metal brats on how it's meant to be done.

From Geeker (Fark.com):

The new Metallica album, "St. Anger" is out. I picked it up last night and am currently trying to give it a good listening to. I've not heard any of it played on the radio as I haven't been listening to any clearchannel lately (*cough*fvckers*). I've been pretty unhappy with Metallica offerings over the past several years, even totally ignoring the past couple to include the one with an orchestra... whatever. But, I caught a sideways comment in some article somewhere about them going old school on this one and that it was supposed to be pretty good, so, thinks me, I'll be the judge of that.

First off, let me just say that Metallica has been trying for a long time to make anything anywhere near as good as "Ride the Lightning", their second album. Since that album, their best stuff has been covers. There were a couple good tunes on "Master of Puppets" (Battery, Damage Inc) but past that point it's all been, frankly, disappointing.

For this lineup, we have the original Lars and James along with almost-as-original Kirk Hammett (he replaced Megadeth's Dave Mustaine dont'cha know). The new bassist, Robert Trujillo, comes over from those nice East L.A. boys we all know and love as Suicidal Tendencies to replace Jason Newstead (who came over from Flotsam and Jetsam).

On a side note, Jason's new band, the venerable Voivod, encourages downloads of their new tunes, unlike some other bands of whom we may have heard.

Anywho, here I sit at work with this new collection of tracks rolling through my ears - ears which have been finely honed in the listening of Metal, both good and bad, at volumes both loud and louder. So, here we go.

The bass is pretty good, nice and fat with a good helping of crunch - fast and loose on several tracks too. This isn't normally the first impresison one should get from a metal album but I happened to be listening for it specifically due to the change in lineup. I can hear a fair bit of S.T. in it too, which is nice.

The next thing which I immediately notice, because it's such a stark difference, is that it sounds like Lars is beating on kettle drums. It's so stark it's distracting. Yay to Lars for his artistic creativity - boo to the band and producer for not beating any sense into him. If there was any original drumming to be heard on this album I probably wouldn't be as harsh, but that stupid "TANG!" that hangs in the air after every kettle drum hit is not only distracting but it sounds entirely out of place.

James does a bunch of singing on this album.

Kirk Hammett, I think, has the queen of all hippies for a wife. I'm pretty sure I heard that watching one of those VH-1 "Beind the Music" shows. He's been off on some creative artistic bent for the past several years and some of that seems to be less present here. Things may not be going well at home. Unfortunately, that's about the most positive thing I can say about any of the guitar work. He's playing the top of the neck and not getting very technical or exciting. I think that the guitar solo in Metal is dead - or at the most getting occasional checkups while on life support.

I think the producer, Bob Rock, is getting ready to retire soon as well. Every song sounds pretty much the same - same pace, same sound, etc. Very good if you like the sound as a sleep inducer. Muddy, flat and monotone for the vast majority of the 11 tracks. I was wondering to myself if we were going to hear about a recall due to faulty mixing by the start of the second track. However, be careful - some tracks use more than two or three chords. It might catch you off guard and make you jerk awake in the middle of traffic.