St. Anger [Edited] [HyperCD/CD & DVD] - Metallica (CD 2003)

I ve decided to go out on a limb today and review the latest album by Metallica, underground thrash metal Gods. It s not likely that you ve heard of these guys because, well, they aren t very well known. In metal circles, they re revered, but the general population really hasn t been exposed to these guys.

Oh, wait It s 2003. Never mind. Let s try that one again.

Everyone and their mom have an opinion on Metallica. They say you should start a review by citing a fact. This, I know to be true. Every single person I ve encountered in the last five years (at least, those I ve had music-related conversations with) has an opinion on Metallica. Those opinions usually run through the whole gamut of though processes, but I ve generally been able to group the opinions that the general population have of Metallica into two categories: the first is that they were once the greatest metal band around but have sold out and become enormous pansies. The second is that they re still a good band making a valid statement and growing as they get older. As a general rule of thumb, the first category far outweighs the second.

But in case you aren t everybody (or their mom), I ll fill you in on things from the beginning. Metallica, formed in California by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton in the early eighties, made a name for themselves covering British heavy metal bands before having some minor success with Kill Em All. That was followed by two more records, both exercises in hard rocking, intricate thrash metal filled to the brim with complicated musical passages and chugging guitars. The future looked bleak when Cliff Burton died in an accident on tour, but alas, he was replaced by Jason Newstead and all was well again. And Justice For All broke Metallica into the mainstream while still retaining the fierceness and energy of their previous efforts. But it wasn t until the group s self-titled record hit the shelves that the world s full-blown love of the group exploded into a fiery orgy of spending cash and banging heads. But something was different here. Teaming up with Bob Rock, the so-called Black Album was quite different from anything that came before it. The heavy metal attitude was certainly prevalent, but songs were shorter and less musically complex, with more of an emphasis on song structure and melody.

Load would eventually follow that album, and represented an even further deviation from the norm. Instead of guitar solos and loud, raw, unchecked aggression, listeners were left with more of a hard-rock incarnation of Metallica, a set of less complex but more introspective songs that seemed very un-metal to many dedicated Metallica fans. Reload only served to confirm this new direction, and quite frankly, fans were p*ssed. Many blamed Bob Rock for taking a perfectly capable thrash metal group and turning them into alternative rockers, merely shadows of their former selves. The cries of sell-out became more and more frequent. Others felt that Load and Reload were simply proof of a band growing and maturing. And still others had no idea what in the hell was going on. And of course, Lars Ulrich s spat with Napster only furthered the accusations of a group gone money hungry. We ve now reached a point in Metallica s career where they could release an album just like one of their earlier classics, and people would still hate it because it s such an in vogue thing to do.

If there s anything that the Metallica story can tell us about human beings, it s that we don t like change. Not in our own lives, not in our movies, not in our television shows, and most definitely not in our music. I suppose I ll play devil's advocate here and come right out and say it. Load and Reload were not bad albums. On the contrary - they were quite good. Both records were filled with songs that were unique, intelligent, and sounded good. Sure there were a few duds (more so on Reload), and they weren t as good as eighties Metallica, but that shouldn t change anything. Sometimes the attempts at new, original songs would fail, but you can t blame a group for trying something different knowing full well that it would likely alienate a significant number of fans. And frankly, the idea of a group of forty-somethings still playing thrash metal and soloing wildly all over the place just doesn t sound right. Of course people are going to mellow down a little as they get older. Only the band themselves know for a fact whether or not these changes were done intentionally for the sake of cash, but somehow, I suspect not. Yet for all the bashing and complaining everyone does, they always seem to eat up anything the group releases. There is always a buzz around them. So they must be doing something right, right? Metallica - the band everyone loves to hate...

Let s get this one thing straight. I m not a Metallica fan boy. I like Metallica, and they were one of my first musical interests, but I m not afraid to come right out and say it if I don t like something about what they ve done. I disagreed with them on the Napster issue, and I knew for a fact that parts of Load and Reload were decidedly average, but I remain an honest fan. The keyword is honest. I really went into Metallica's new album St. Anger neither knowing what I was going to hear, nor what I was sure I wanted to hear. I ll admit that I wouldn t have really minded something more in the vein of Load, but I m sure I had the hope somewhere in the back of my mind that they d be able to move forward as a group while still remaining true to their classic records. What I was sure that I didn t want was an updated version of Ride The Lightning Or Master Of Puppets. Because if Metallica had sold-out on Load, wouldn t returning back to before that be an even worse transgression? A resell-out, if you will? Can thrash metal even really be viable today? A piece of music showing no growth at all in twenty years would have been even more disappointing to me than anything else that they could have done, because it would be giving in and showing that Metallica is a group incapable of growing as artists and musicians. So then what did I want? Well, I honestly don t know. I went into St. Anger with some level of cautious optimism, wondering exactly what the addition of Robert Trujillo on bass would do for the group. Would it reenergize them? Change their approach entirely?

Ecstatic that St. Anger would be released five days early, I made a trek to the mall for the sole purpose of picking it up, shelling out $14.99 Cdn. for the CD which came along with a bonus DVD and some added content that I ll delve into later. I carefully unwrapped the cellophane packaging, opened the cardboard fold cover and put the compact disc into my stereo, cranking the volume. I was dumbfounded. Yet, for some peculiar reason, I don t know why I was dumbfounded or whether dumbfounded is a particularly good or bad thing here. There s a tremendous amount of hype regarding this set that, I ll admit right off the bat is largely unwarranted. But other than saying that, I m not even sure I know where to start. The problem I have with St. Anger is that I don t know exactly how I feel about it. There seem to be so many things going on the music here that my mixed feelings are extremely difficult to sort out.

Right off the bat, I ll state that St. Anger is neither a five-star album, nor a one-star album. I m sure it falls in a range between those two numbers, but that s about all I m sure about. When I first heard the single St. Anger on the radio, I thought it was absolutely terrible, but after listening to it three or four times, it has definitely grown on me, much like the St. Anger album as a whole has. On my first run through, I was literally shocked at how bad the record was. How many years of waiting, and all I got was this? Frankly, I was angry. The songs were terrible, the vocals were terrible. Nothing was right with St. Anger. I didn t even want to listen to it again, and I understand where MattA75 was coming from when he ripped into this record like nothing else - but I don t think that his assessment is as accurate as it could be. I d go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps he wanted so badly to hate this album that anything would have disappointed him (no offense intended of course, just an observation). I listened to St. Anger again, and it wasn t quite so bad. The third and fourth time, it was alright. The fifth time, I started to actually enjoy some of what s here while still recognizing a tremendous number of flaws that seem to be part of the eleven tracks making up St. Anger.

So what exactly do we have here in our hands? Is this Load-era Metallica or classic Metallica? That seems to be the burning question on everybody s mind. The answer is neither, and I m not sure whether I like that or not. If Metallica s first era began with Kill Em All and their second with Load, then St. Anger surely marks the beginning of a third era, because the seventy-five minutes on this compact disc are not at all like anything Metallica has ever put to tape before. There are some similarities, but nothing that overpoweringly strikes me as resembling anything that they ve done before. Possibly the biggest difference is the complete lack of solos of any kind. There are some intricate lead lines and intros that vaguely resemble solo work, but there s nothing here that really gives Kirk Hammett the chance to tear into his guitar. Old fans of the band will absolutely despise this, but there seems to be some logic behind this decision, as it allows for more of a concentration to be placed on the song structure and flow of the album as a whole. The almost alternative rock of Load and Reload have been replaced by an urgent blast of heavy metal guitar drenched with unequalled aggression, although there s nothing that really reaches the scale of ferocity found on Ride The Lightning. Song structures are more winding and narrative then they ever were on Load; songs are longer, and the band seems more intent on just being angry and spiteful than they ever have in the past. That s still not necessarily a good thing, though, as the anger and winding song structures do drag a lot at times (but I ll get to that later). After listening through about twelve times, I was left with one particular comparison in mind. St. Anger, to me, sounds like an amalgamation of And Justice For All Metallica with many of the traits of the current crop of n -metal, especially from bands like System Of A Down. One of those traits would be the lack of solos, another would be the use of runs of high-notes during verses or bridges. However, there also seem to be another class of influences in the make-up of the music that not many people have really picked up on. St. Anger, I felt, owes somewhat of a debt to Corrosion Of Conformity and others of their ilk for some of the textured chugging riffs and straining, intentionally off-key vocal parts. James Hetfield s vocal approach is slightly different from the past, too. While still employing the trademark growl, he has somehow found a way to make his voice sound completely different than it ever has in the past - think midrange singsong. All of this doesn t sound particularly bad so far. In fact, it sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, there s a flaw inherent in this, and it s that Metallica isn t able to pull off this approach very effectively at numerous points throughout St. Anger.

By far the biggest problem with St. Anger is the production. In a word, this disc sounds terrible, and this is one of the few points that I ll agree with just about everybody in. The production, the mix, and the sound quality are all of a very low standard of quality that it s hard to stomach. It s impossible to appreciate the heavy brutality of Hetfield s rhythm guitar when it s so undefined and muddy as it is here. The bass is almost inaudible because it has been pushed so far back in the mix. The drums are just weak. For the most part, it sounds as if Lars is pounding away on a briefcase, desperately trying to get a recognizable sound out of it. The bass drum is dull, and the snare has more of a dull clang noise than a recognizable thump. If, as Jimmy Page often repeats, "distance equals depth" when it comes to recording, the mics must have been placed about a quarter-inch away from Lars drum set. Metallica themselves have said that this production was intentional - they wanted something grungy, hard and just plain dirty - but they took a good idea much too far. Some here have said that this level of production is daring, but I don t see it that way. The struggle for clarity just ruins what would otherwise be excellent songs or parts of songs. More than anything else, St. Anger would benefit from a new mastering and mixing job at the hands of someone other than Bob Rock, who shows his ineptitude at creating a truly dirty, atmospheric sound.

If you can overlook that significant flaw, St. Anger isn t that bad of an album, definitely not as bad as some have made it out to be. I m not saying there s nothing wrong with it, because this new Metallica sound does need some work, but I d be lying if I said that there wasn t definite potential here. First and foremost of my problems with St. Anger is, as another review so aptly put it, more aggressive doesn t necessarily mean better. This is one of the basic pieces of advice that could really help Metallica on their next record. The ultra-heavy, p*ssed-off mood of these tracks runs unspoiled for over seventy five minutes. There s no ballad, no respite from the thick, sludgy wall of aggression that permeates St. Anger. Perhaps the band could have laid back a little during a set of verses, or slow down an entire song - because heavy doesn t necessarily go hand-in-hand with aggressive. At some point, the songs begin to sound the same and they start to run together, making it difficult to figure out where one ends and the next begins. It s almost dizzying trying to make sense of this mess of muddy, overdriven guitars.

Secondly, the lyrics need some work. Most of the dedicated Metallica fans who are sure that the band can do no wrong seem to think that the lyrics here are ultra-personal, even more so than anything found on Tallica s previous records. With only a few exceptions, that s an outright lie. For the most part, St. Anger s lyrics seem far more the result of a stream-of-consciousness approach rather than any specific attempt at mapping out subject and meaning. And at times, that stream-of-consciousness becomes responsible for some stuff that sounds a little ridiculous. The Doors could pull off something like that because Jim Morrison was a poet (not really a good one, but he did have a talent at creating interesting, simple prose). Metallica can t because James Hetfield really needs to work these things out on paper and in great detail before he can create something that sounds interesting. There plenty of great lyrical moments - Frantic among them - but also quite a few that left me shaking my head at the pure banality of it all. The fact that Bob Rock also contributed to the writing process is also a sign of something not so good. With every album, it s beginning to look more and more like Metallica has become dependant on Bob Rock for everything from producing to helping with the writing process.

Lastly, St. Anger left me frustrated as a result of endless riffs and passages that honestly had no idea what to do with themselves. Nearly every track on the album begins with a complex guitar part that sounds almost maniacally evil, chugging along with an insane amount of feral aggression and heaviness. Yet about ninety percent of the time, that heavy intro is quickly overtaken by the actual melody of the song that in no way resembles anything coming before it. It s not just the intros either; at seemingly random points in the songs, Hetfield and Hammett will go off on long, drawn out tangents filled with the pointless crunching of guitars that completely interrupt the flow of songs. The tempo changes create a stutter effect that really inhibits the structure and vibe each of these songs has, because they don t sound at all related to the songs that they are part of. One more than one occasion, the completely misleading intros and pointless breaks left me feeling as if two or three different songs were spliced together in an effort to create one. They force these passages into the songs, but it sounds as if they re trying to put the square peg into the round hole - it just doesn t work. These little tangents also present another problem, and that is time. I ve never had a problem with long songs, but the tracks here simply go on for far longer than they need to, yet they keep on chugging along even after delivering the gist of their statement. There are times when these long songs are effective, but for the most part, St. Anger would have benefited by having five or six songs shortened by a minute or two each.

These flaws and problems are so frustrating to me because it s obvious that underneath the body of the song is a basic shell and skeleton that would actually sound excellent if worked out in the right way. The melody, tempo, and the interaction between the band are all as good as it s ever been, but these problems really take away from what would otherwise be good pieces. This point is actually proven by the bonus DVD, which features studio rehearsals of every song on the disc - the mix here is actually infinitely better on these sessions than on the CD itself, and there are quite a few songs that improve drastically as a result. Others still don t hold up quite so well, but I don t think there was a single person on earth expecting a perfect record by any means.

There s no doubt in my mind that St. Anger s finest cut is the very first one. Frantic sounds very good, but at the same time it creates a problem, because there s really nothing else on the album that can really compare to it. A couple come close, but none capture the fast-paced fury of the band as they blow their way through this five minute number, guitars ablaze with overdrive and palm muted chugging. Lyrically, Frantic is also among the best cuts, as Hetfield howls, My lifestyle/Will determine my death style over the rush of his thick rhythm guitar.

The title track St. Anger follows, and to be honest, I m still not quite sure how I feel about it. The fact that it was chosen as the first single does confuse me, as there is definitely far better to be found elsewhere on the disc, but it s really not a bad song. There s nothing particularly noteworthy about it, but at the same time, it does have a relatively interesting structure. Perhaps the track s biggest flaw is, like so much else on this album, that it s just plain too long (the album cut is longer than the single version by about two minutes). Lyrically vague and more than a little clich d, St. Anger has some measure of success because of the guitar work throughout it. It can never compare with the title tracks of other Metallica albums, and it isn t particularly indicative of the record as a whole, but there isn t really anything that ruins the song.

Some Kind Of Monster is the third track, existing as somewhat of a link (along with Frantic and a few other cuts) between the old Metallica and the new Metallica. The heavy power chords and frenetic pace of the distorted guitars and (what would be) thundering drums remain a constant the whole way through the track as Hetfield screams in his best growl, Are we the people/Some kind of monster? St. Anger continues this new trend with another biting, growling track, Dirty Window, filled with tempo and structure changes all the way through. The song s bridge finally slows things down for a moment as Lars drumbeat backs Hetfield s claim, I m judge and I m jury and I m executioner too, before the group launches into a full on assault of screaming and intense guitars.

Invisible Kid, a song with some definite punk leanings marks the beginning of the real lyrical problems on St. Anger (not to mention an intro that owes more than a little bit to the Beastie Boys Sabotage) . Everything else aside, the track sounds just plain silly and so forced that it s difficult to sit through it. Incidentally, this is also the point where the unrelenting chug of guitars and drums begins to blend together making one song virtually unrecognizable from the next. My World and Shoot Me Again sound forced and uninspired, running together as one long mess that goes on for far longer than it could every possibly need too. Sweet Amber sounds, at first, like it could finally offer some respite from the unending barrage of brutality, but the soft intro quickly devolves into yet another mess of sped-up metal. What would otherwise be an excellent cut is the first track on St. Anger to really begin to grate as a result of the poor production and those random tempo changes that are all over the place.

By The Unnamed Feeling, I began to wonder whether I was hearing some of the same songs over again, but the intro eventually turns into something that does actually remind me of System Of A Down (at least until the vocals enter the mix). I actually like the way in which Hetfield s voice is used here, although I can t quite explain what it sounds like. Purify is one of the better tracks, with it s low, screaming vocals. Unfortunately, like so many other cuts, it goes on for longer than it needs to. All Within My Hands closes St. Anger much in the way it started and sounded at the midpoint. The heavy guitars have by this point completely rattled my brain, and the somewhat slowed-down verses provide just the slightest amount of respite from the unending assault. On the whole, it s a solid, if somewhat unspectacular song - which is a good way to describe most of this album (at least the parts where it succeeds).

The bonus DVD, as I mentioned previously, features Metallica rehearsing each of St. Anger s eleven tracks live. What s surprising, actually, is that the bonus DVD has much better production values than the compact disc, meaning that some tracks are a lot more hard-hitting here than they were on the album. On the DVD, the interaction between the band members becomes easy to see, as does the fact that they re obviously having fun with what they re doing. Yeah, Lars does look like a tool with the bleached blonde hair, but hey - he is a tool. Also included within the clich d metal artwork of the packaging is a slip of paper with a code on it. That code gives you access to a Metallica Vault on their Website from which you can watch, listen to and download live performances, rarities, and other material along those lines. I haven t been able to check this out yet, but from the sound of things, it s a very cool feature - pandering to the fan base as it may be.

I hate to give St. Anger a bad rating, because even though I recognize that it s severely lacking at times, the basic ideas and the skeletons of the songs are, for the most part, very good. Robert Trujillo is a good fit with the group, his howling vocals and wild style on the bass (even though Bob Rock played a significant amount of the bass) are interesting, sounding similar to Jason Newstead while also being a little different and unusual. But like I said, I can see some of the songs as being really good. Unfortunately, in an attempt to do something - God knows what, exactly - Metallica has hurt some of the tracks by either adding too much or not enough to them. The production, intentional as it may have been, is perhaps the biggest downfall, but it s by no means the only one. St. Anger is filled with good ideas that just got stretched too thin. They go on for too long, and at times sound as if two or more songs have been spliced together as one. But, on the other hand, when the band is successful, there are some great moments. They haven t written anything as powerful and ferocious as Frantic or Some Kind Of Monster in years, which is perhaps a sign that things are looking up; that Metallica is maturing without rehashing the same ideas over and over again.

If St. Anger was comprised solely of the music compact disc itself, it would probably be about three out of five stars. The bonus DVD and the password for the Vault would likely kick it up to a four, but I m feeling harsh today, and I d feel guilty giving this set more than three stars, because it really doesn t earn them through any honest means. Take this review as what you will. St. Anger has four or five bright spots, three or four average songs, and a couple of tracks that just don t belong anywhere. But to be sure, when Metallica hits the mark, there are some great songs and great pieces of songs that come as a result. A little more consistency would have helped, but I see St. Anger as the mark of a band in progress - even if twenty plus years have already passed since their formation.