Band:	Metallica
Album:	St. Anger
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	June 05, 2003
Guest review by:	The Silent Man

Disc I
01. Frantic
02. St. Anger
03. Some Kind Of Monster
04. Dirty Window
05. Invisible Kid
06. My World
07. Shoot Me Again
08. Sweet Amber
09. The Unnamed Feeling
10. Purify
11. All Within My Hands

Disc II [Live in the studio at Metallica HQ DVD - digipack bonus]
01. Frantic
02. St. Anger
03. Some Kind Of Monster
04. Dirty Window
05. Invisible Kid
06. My World
07. Shoot Me Again
08. Sweet Amber
09. The Unnamed Feeling
10. Purify
11. All Within My Hands

Six long years after the release of ReLoad, Metallica come back on the scene to show their 8th studio album, St. Anger. Many of you have almost lost all the respect for this band since the release of the black album, many others hate them because of Load and ReLoad and some others have now lost every interest in their music. Actually, what can you all expect from the band who left its early amazing style to get fame and glory on MTV?

They got the MTV Icon 2003 nomination [did we all see Avril Lavigne?]. They released several commercial operations such as 'I Disappear'; they have a new bass player with a terrible funky look; they have an awful new logo; better leave out this ugly cover artwork by Pushead. The Four Horsemen seem now so far from what they were the 80's...

Are we angry enough? Well, Metallica seem to be angry too! Probably, they've never been so angry before. All the patience they had, all the critics they beared, all the rage they had inside and all the anger have now exploded.

They thought: "Metallica cannot end this way, so we've got to return to our early feelings". This is right: they made a new album, returning to heavy sounds but producing it with all the experience they acquired in these last 20 years. Now it's easy to understand the album's title and the scream in the title track: "I need to set my anger free"!

The Four Horsemen want to regain the fans' trust and to reassure them. For this reason they included a bonus DVD featuring live rehearsal recordings of all eleven songs played with Rob Trujillo. So it is also a way to show us Rob's skill, since he doesn't play on the cd: we must remember that Rob joined Metallica when St. Anger was almost finished and that producer Bob Rock played all the bass lines during the recording sessions.

But what is St. Anger like? Is it "just another Metallica joke"? Is it expensive because of the DVD? Shall you buy it? Don't worry: I bought it for you, the same day as the release, DVD included, it cost me 21,75 Euros: regular Italian price.

I've been waiting for this album since I was 12, since I pushed play and heard Metallica for the first time: "Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire!". Then began a strong passion that will not end until they'll record rap songs.

I've never lost my Metallifaith [maybe because ReLoad was my first Metal cd] but I must admit that I wasn't expecting all this. I could type a dozen pages about St. Anger but I'll try to describe it in a few lines.

Look at the package: awful design. Look at the tracklist: hmmm, track #2 is a title track, just as in the first albums. Interesting... Now push play!

'Frantic' is heavy fast thrash metal! Aggressive vocals, heavy riffs, terrible drums and a catchy riff coming up sometimes from all that mess! You might think: "The opening tracks are always heavy". You may be right. You may...

Let's skip to the second track. Now your tongue has frozen! You begin to understand that the whole album is pure anger. In the title track there is just a slow clean part during the chorus: it is one of the few soft parts you will find here.

In this album Lars proves that he can still play drums at full blast! I think that we can compare his work on this album to that of ...And Justice For All: ultracomplex and massive. This seems to be a natural evolution, just as St. Anger was Metallica's 6th album. It is just unbelievable: Metallica seems to have buried every trail of Load, ReLoad and maybe of the black album too! You all remember that tiring title track in ...And Justice For All and its complex structure. Now forget it: songs like 'Some Kind Of Monster' and 'All Within My Hands' are here to drive you crazy. I never heard any Metallisong so complex! Just undescribable. Go further, skip all the tracks: the more you hear the less you believe. Are these the same guys who played 'Nothing Else Matters' with an orchestra? Hard to believe. This is not Metallica.

St. Anger is a brutal Thrash metal work, without any kind of structure, totally different from what we heard before. There are no bridges, no verses, no chorus. The guitars are fat. There are no solos: where is Kirk Hammett?

The drums are simply excellent, for their raw sound and above all for the great double bassdrums parts: well done, Lars! But the drums volume is really too loud. The vocal parts are absurd: no melodic lines, too much speech and screams. Total absence of melodic parts: there isn't any heavy ballad, just brutal pieces. It's not a problem: I like Pantera.

But even the early works featured some quiet moments. All the clean guitars we heard in 'One' have disappeared! And what is the result? A chaotic mass of riffs and exuberant drums: Metallica can still shock us! But in my opinion all this mess is not the right way to regain the fans? trust. These are not The Four Horsemen. These are four mad guys.

I'd leave this review without a rating. How would you rate a Metal record that doesn't feature any guitar solo? Can you all hear me? I bet that their next album will include once again fantastic melodies: I swear it! Hehehee...

I know that while I'm typing this on June 6, 2003 [yeah, the same day as the release], thousands of people don't even imagine how they're gonna be shocked! So it is hard to foretell now, but I believe that St. Anger can potentially become an important turning point for Metallica but also for the fans who abandoned them soon after Load. This work shall prove to the world that they're not done yet: like the phoenix, Metallica seems to have risen from its ashes. At the moment, I personally don't like this record. I'd like to see some other review [even on this website].