Album Review: Metallica - St. Anger (2003)

Making a heavy metal album that sets out to portray the interpersonal tensions within a band, seems, in theory, to be a great idea. In practice, though, it's like taking relationship advice from Josef Fritzel. And the idea of making an album that portrays a band playing in the garage for the first time is fine, provided the band is a recent startup and the album is actually a demo tape. Metallica made this the theme of their 2003 effort, St. Anger, and despite much hype and anticipation prior to its release, and somehow selling several million copies in the process, public impressions of the album went down faster than a suicidal Japanese businessman jumping off the 55th floor of a Tokyo skyscraper with an anvil in tow. And listening to the album, it's not hard to see why. Firstly, the drum snare is ear-bleeding awful. It sounds like a three year old tanked on caffeine belting the shit out of a empty paint can with a pair of cucumbers. Secondly, some of the lyrics sound like they were written by the Rain Man, being repetitive and bearing little poetic quality. There are some tracks on this album that are bearable, but only on rare occasions. On the whole, this album is the low point of Metallica's career, and unless you are a serious 'Metallifan' or collector, then this album is worth giving a miss. My verdict - most people will shun it; but Rain Man will love it. C-