Reviews list for Metallica - St. Anger (2003)

In Defense of St. Anger.

User  @ZeroSymbolic7188  wrote "It was an unpleasant, misguided experience that nobody, not even the band, enjoyed." and " BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG"

But I am here to speak today to say  NAY to this heresy against St Anger. I am here to speak of its good qualities. That I think many are unwilling to look into in order to join in with the masses and stand among the crowd who gathers to throw their stones as it is the 'cool' thing to hate this. but as it says in the song Dirty Window , I'm judge, I'm jury, and I'm executioner too.  And perhaps I myself drink from the cup of denial when I say that St Anger, is not a bad album. Is it a great album? No. I'm not insane. I love Metallica,  but I am not speaking with an uncritical bias ( you can miss me with And Justice For All. but that is a topic for another review.)  But I don't believe it deserves the hate  people lobby at it. This album  take elements of classic Metallica sound that a fan who enjoys them would be able to recognize and enjoy, but also has some new and different elements. Trying out some grungier, dirtier less polished sounding elements  in the tones and instrumentations and throwing more dirt on the lower end and yes, that drum set tone, was  a definable shift. but I can't say I hate its distinct sound. In fact my own less than professional grade set sitting in my basement right now sound VERY SIMILAR, is it a little broken? yeah. Do I still play it all the time in a band? yeah. Does it feel relatable like when I hear James calling out INVISIBLE KID  while it bongs on the tracks? yeah.  

Its an album that I can say I have listened to more songs from it and have come back to more times to listen to or discuss than many other so called " better " albums . with other individuals who say they do no not enjoy it. yet them so "wait you have to hear this' to others... To which I say,  isn't it a sign of the music's importance and relevance if you believe everyone should hear it? Even if Frantic is the only song you bring up,   (you cannot say its just for the silly lyrics because James has many many songs on many other albums with less than intelligent lyrics)

There are many very potent lines from this album that are relatable and striking yet only the silliest are brought up,  but are you  familiar with the ending of My World when  James starts singing "  God it only feels like it only rains on me,  into  I don't even know what the question is into ENOUGH is ENOUGH is ENOUGH is ENOUGH!

This album feels very heavy to me both thematically and sonically and I am a big fan of that. I am here because I LIKE heavy metal, and being a fan of noise music, perhaps that's why I'm quick to forgive what many deem are unforgivable sounds when to me it makes many of the tracks sound heavier when the large hits drive in emphasis on the beats. 

If you have only listened to this album with the ear's of a listener ready to take the piss out of it  then I encourage you to take another listen to it.

Listen to it as someone ready  to see a band trying to come together and express some raw and powerful thoughts and emotions to you. Back to a band who is just picking up their instruments and playing. Not trying to churn out the shiniest piece of metal, but something raw and infiltered and heavy. And if you still can't get past it, so be it. But you're not cooler for hating it. You're just, basic. which is fine,  but there's no medal for it. remember, Your lifestyle determines your deathstyle.

I've been hearing a lot about the hate and controversy towards Metallica's 2003 album St. Anger, and I finally decided to give it a shot. And I'm probably one of the many people thinking, "THIS is the band that made Master of Puppets?!?" Yes, it's as awful as many say it is, but there are still some parts I enjoy about it. Though we're gonna start by pointing out all the mistakes the band made for this album. For one thing, the band distanced themselves further away from their thrash roots and even the hard rock/heavy metal of Load/Reload. Now it's generally just alt-/nu metal that takes some groove metal/metalcore from some of my favorite bands and botches it up hard. Heavy verses and catchy choruses are a cool blend but end sounding more suitable for alt-music radio than in line with the band's 80s/90s thrash/heavy metal peers.

It ends up being quite strange hearing the occasional guitar and blasts of yore when most of what's going on is closer in sound to Drowning Pool. The guitars would've been a lot more interesting if there were any solos. Now I've heard a lot of solo-less metal music over the years, but when the songs drag on for a long time without variety... C'MON MAN! And of course, we can't forget about the SNARE. The only other band who had a oil-can snare drum that I'm aware of is Cold as Life, based on one of their songs that I heard in a Revolution playlist. There's also no bass at all. And the vocals by James Hetfield make me cringe when trying to doing some nu metal shouting.

The first third of this 75-minute album is the part that's not all bad, as we have the raging anger of the title track. Plus, "Some Kind of Monster" is a monstrous 8-minute epic that should be re-recorded with the improved production the band would have later, guitar soloing, audible bass, and none of the G****MN SNARE. When the worst offender "Invisible Kid" comes in, that's when everything sounds too similar and makes the remainder of the album a f***ing migraine-inducing mess.

So yeah, St. Anger is bad, though only two of the first 4 songs are good enough to score some points. While there's nothing wrong with experimentation, it doesn't often pay off as it should, and it has tainted the history of metal. You can't win it all from this band....

Favorites (only songs I like): "St. Anger", "Some Kind of Monster"

User Shadowdoom9 (Andi) writes "Interesting review, Zach. Now I'm curious about your thoughts on Metallica's other highly hated album St. Anger. I haven't listened to that one but I'm aware of the amount of hate it has received." In response to my review of the much maligned Lulu project. 

Well, ask and ye sha'll recieve...

The late 90s and early 2000s saw the emergence of nu-metal acts such as Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, System of a Down, and so forth. That context is important when trying to understand Metallica's St. Anger, Megadeth's Risk, or Slayer's Diabolus in Music. These albums aren't the worst things ever made, but they are widely considered to be missteps in the discographies of otherwise legendary thrash metal bands of the 1980s. The effect was kind of like a lame dad trying to relate to his angsty teenage son. It was uncomfortable and a little awkward because "dad just doesn't get it." The old legends were a bit out of their element is what I mean. In Metallica's particular case add on top of it that the band and it's members were a mess at the time-if you have not seen the rockumentary "Some Kind of Monster" it's kind of a mandatory watch, and explains a lot about why this thing came out the way it did. Then of course there is that god forsaken snare tone BONG BONG BONG BONG.

Let me explain how that snare makes me feel, as a young man I once rented a video game called Turok Dinosaur Hunter 2: Seeds of Evil. The game is recently remastered, and worth playing for nostalgia or if you enjoy "boomer shooters". Why do I bring this up? The game features a weapon called the Cerebral Bore. You fire the Cerebral Bore at an enemy and it drills into their skull then explodes, blowing the head off in gory fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CaiXVbFZXI That is what the snare drum on this album does. It gradually bores it's way into your brain until your mind explodes-no not in the fun way, but rather in the dentist drill during a root canal kind of way. It's damn unpleasant, and it doesn't stop. 

The best thing about this is album is the opening track "Frantic", because it contains an absolutely goofy chorus FRANTIC-TICK-TOCK, TICK, TICK-TICK-TOK! and the line "My lifestyle determines my death style." Which I've been internally and externally debating if it is brilliant or the absolute stupidest fucking line in a song ever sang. I think it's very cheesy like a goofy Doctor Seus thing, but James is singing it with his whole heart like it's the deepest shit he ever wrote, and damned if I don't want to hear him do it from time to time. That track is responsible for 0.5 of the 1 star I gave this album.

The title track is a weird metaphor that just doesn't work. St. Anger-he's bustin' out, he's bustin out... it's dumb as all hell, and yet I constantly reference it in near daily conversations with my wife whenever a student at work (we are teachers) or our family dog becomes clearly irritated with something we can't explain-it's St. Anger.. he's bustin' out, he's bustin out! That's another .25 of the single star rating.

The remaining .25 is for "Purify" which would be great if it was about 1/3rd as long as it is. 

Everything else on this album is a waste of time. 5 of the remaining 7 songs are over 5 minutes long, some getting up around 7 or even 9 minutes in length, and there was not a single idea on this album worth expressing for more than 3... no 2 and 1/2 minutes. Shave these songs down to their best parts, and make a punk album and hey I could see it... except BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG. There is no saving that snare tone, and listen I know that snare tone is a running gag in the metal community, but it really is some unholy torture device if you listen to this album in one sitting. I can not remember a single memorable thing about any of those songs, not a single thing, not line, not a riff, none of it. I remember the BONG BONG though, the goddamned BONG BONG BONG.

Without the context of Some Kind of Monster, you would think this album was some kind of sadistic hazing ritual on Robert Trujillo. "Welcome to Metallica now play the shittiest music you've ever played", but it wasn't-nobody is that sick and cruel. 

It was an unpleasant, misguided experience that nobody, not even the band, enjoyed. This is not the album Metallica wanted to make, this was the album that Metallica had to make at that time, and it plays like it.

I like 'St. Anger'.

There, I said it.

Metal fans the world over will probably know all about 'St. Anger' and what contributed to its critical panning. The atrocious production, the awful drums (that don't even sound like drums), the cringe-worthy lyrics, the lack of guitar solos, the strained singing... the list goes on and on. But for all its faults and wrongdoings, the music itself on this album is still fairly decent.

I was sixteen when this album was released and was, at the time, a Metallica fanatic. Trivial things such as production was the last thing on my mind when this came out. I was just happy that my favourite band had released a new record and it rocked. Of course, as I grew older I learned to appreciate music production more, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the joy I gain from the compositions themselves still remain.

Whilst we're all familiar with (and most probably dislike) 'Frantic', 'Some Kind of Monster' and 'The Unnamed Feeling', this record has some forgotten gems such as 'Sweet Amber', 'All Within My Hands' and 'Shoot Me Again', which are all pretty underappreciated.

In truth, I'd be wasting my time if I tried to sell anyone on this album, as by now I figure everyone has made up their mind about it. But I'm happy with it. Sure, it has its problems, but it's different and unique and I enjoy it all the same. And the extra DVD of the band playing the album in the studio make this a nice little package.

Even if this album is not the "true" old Metallica (far away from the first 4 untouchables albums), i have always liked the raw sound and the balls of the band to issue such an album ! With solos and shorter tracks it could have been more liked...in my opinion better than Load and Re-Load.