Customer Reviews

St. Anger

5 star:		(900)
4 star:		(605)
3 star:		(415)
2 star:		(414)
1 star:		(1,217)

 

 

I bought the new Metallica cd today and I have to say it is the biggest disappointment imaginable. I have been a fan of Metallica since Ride the Lightning and this is just not good. Problem #1: The production. The entire album sounds like it was recorded in a tin can. Metallica's signature sound (heavy guitars, driving bass and powerful drums) is gone. It has been replaced with this overpowered snare drum with all the song pretty much sounding the same. None of the songs are memorable, in fact, most of the CD sounds exactly the same. I've bought some great albums this year (Soilwork, Disturbed) and this just doesn't rank up there with them. I'll stick with "And Justice For All"

Given the dearth of positive reviews for St. Anger St. Anger (Bonus DVD), I feel I need to state my credentials up front. I came late to metal. My own musical interests are varied and span centuries. Classic rock, punk rock, and hardcore are where I traditionally go to rock out.

Enter St. Anger, my first Metallica album. I am now a fan and will dabble in the back-catalog as a result of this garage-sounding, low-res album sent to us from a tortured soul. I have seen the documentary Metallica - Some Kind Of Monster (2004) and I understand the background and motivation for St. Anger. This is a back-to-basics hard rock album that is intended to be raw and spare. I get it and I relate. The snare drum that is much-talked about I understand completely and the drum's sound is integral to the album. Imagine U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday War (Rm) without the same drum. The drums on St. Anger are at once primal, like beating on an old garbage can lid, and somehow reminiscent of an old military band, making its procession down your street. This is a frantic call to arms, an 11th-hour plea for release from the monster that has taken control of our lives. I think you can fill in the blanks with your own monster and it all makes sense.

The guitar work is hard and raw, and Hetfield's broken-voiced lyrics render the work sincere. Stand-outs on this album are especially the first 4 tracks: Frantic, St. Anger, the monumental Some Kind of Monster, and Dirty Window. Over the years my musical tastes have expanded rather than receded, and I can now listen to metal with an open mind and no preconceptions. If it rocks, if the band are in a serious groove, I'm into it. St. Anger rocks hard and the lyrics are heart-felt. Ulrich's drums are in your face so much that if you're listening to this in the car you'll want to stop the car, get out, find a can somewhere and start beating the living daylights out of it. Cool. I want more of this.

Yes Metallica has changed in the last 20 odd years in there career span, fans dont realize that the cant do the same thing as they once did (they're in they're early 40's) but i think this CD is there best in my opinion, its loud, fast and there rythem gets james (vocalist) to work hard to produce the best song for the Cd. I would recomend this CD to anyone into metal or rock, i really cant find any flaw at all.

I don't khow what people's problems are with this album. Admittedly I'm not in love with the first 2 songs, but after that I can listen to this disc over and over. Some Kind Of Monster is a great song. Dirty Window is very original and
catchy. Invisible Kid is O.K. it has its moments.For me the rest
of the album just blows my mind.As with most Metallica albums
I usually like the second side better than the first.My favorite
song(right now anyway) is The Unnamed Feeling. The power of the

lirics and guitar is just unbelievable. You really need to crank
this one up or check it out on headphones to really appreciate
it. Listen, to put this album in perspective,look at the great
bands of history and what they were making twenty plus years into
there existence. Noone can match Metallica for their ability to make interesting, hard rocking, different music at this point of
their careers. I think that anyone who doesn't like this album
is lacking something between their ears. To me, the fact that this album is not getting radio play reinforces how good it is.
The radio always prefers to play the safe "hits" and has not
given true fans enough variety. That can be said for any band.
Point is I'm sure there are bands making new, interesting music
out there but I havn't heard them because millions of braindead
music fans allow the radio to play the same old crap hour after
hour,day after day.Bottom line don't let music snobs sway your
beliefs. Give this album a good try on headphones a couple of times before passing judgement.

Before Metallica released St. Anger, there were obvious problems with the band. They had long since cut their hair and done away with their larger than life image from the 80's. They had begun moving toward a style of metal that could be more accessable to the public, and in doing so they alienated their long standing fans. Added to all this were the legal battles against Napster and digital music. There were more than a few Metallica fans who left the ranks because of the band's staunch stand against file sharing.

So what should the band release for their new album? Should they return to their roots and put out another album of blazing speed metal? Or should they push the envelope and see if they can reinvent Metallica? Of course they chose the latter, and this decision may prove to be their final undoing.

The decision to reinvent the band and its sound resulted in the album you're looking at here, St. Anger. You can't blame the band for trying, but almost everything about this album is wrong, wrong, wrong. The concept behind the album isn't a bad one. St. Anger is largely a first person exploration of James Hetfield's inner demons. He was, after all, fresh out of rehab.

So conceptually the album isn't too bad, but musically it's one of the worst things I've ever heard, and I've heard a LOT of records. The first thing you'll notice are the awful, ear-splittingly bad drums. The drums sound like Ulrich is playing on a Wal-Mart quality kit in a public bathroom. Honestly it sounds like he took his drum key, loosened the heads, and tried to get as much hum and echo as possible. So the tight, hard hitting, pulse driving drums from Metallica's early days are gone and all we have is wimpy, nasty, pathetic sounding drums. Honestly I don't know what they were thinking when they decided that this was the drum sound they wanted for the album.

Backing up the awful drums are a whole lot of awful guitar noises. In the early days Metallica played as one huge mind-blowing metal-spewing machine. On St. Anger it sounds like the kind of stuff you would expect from a high school band. There is no sense of unity or coherence from the guitar section. The guitar parts bring nothing memorable to this album. Earlier Metallica albums left screaming guitar lines etched in your brain. St. Anger leaves ugly guitar parts you wish you could forget.

Finally, there are the vocals. In the early years of Metallica, the vocals were harsh and biting. In recent years the vocals have been overproduced and have lost quite a bit of their edge. On St. Anger, Hetfields vocals sound neither harsh nor overproduced. The vocals are thin, tinny, and weak in comparison with other Metallica material. If you have enjoyed the vocals of previous Metallica albums, chances are you will find the vox on St. Anger more than a little annoying.

So put all these elements together: the nasty drums, the incoherent guitars, and the thin vocals and what do you have? A horrible, horrible album. This is the worst album in recent memory. I would honestly rather listen to Shatner perform spoken-word versions of Beatles songs. That's how bad this album is. Don't waste your money. Don't support Metallica's lame attempt to reinvent metal. You have been warned.

This CD is awful, and a friend of mine who I have seen Metallica with too many times to count when they were actually cool just told me that he saw a shirt that had cartoon Metallica with Spongebob Squarepants and that f*cking pink blob that hangs out with him. The shirt read "Spongebob Squarepants and Metallica". That shirt perfectly describes this waste of time and matter.

...but no, Linkin Park didn't make this album, Metallica made this album. Just sit back for a second and think about that. It's sad really, isn't it. Now I'm not going to point the selling out finger, and to all those who use that term, If you feel that strongly about it, just don't listen to it, but I do believe that the reason this Cd is er... 'lacking' in some parts is because of the standards set before. I don't really care about solo's missing or whatever, as sometimes they sound a bit silly really. It's just, in Metallica's previous efforts, songs were like... ten different riffs, each that could've held one song on their own, shoved into one song. Now it's like... One (or two) riffs played over and over, for seven minutes. The same goes for the lyrics. That said, this CD does have a redeeming factor in 'the unnamed feeling' which I actually like more than some of the old Metallica stuff. Infact, the three stars are mainly just for the one song (Maybe half a star because Frantic would've been good were it not so repeatitive) So anyways, 'St.Anger' a let down, if they released the unamed feeling, just by the single and you'll be better off.

Great album, best since Justice, and very well performed.

GO METALLICATZ!

I've read many of the reviews posted before this one, and I believe that people need to realize what this album is. This album was about Metallica reinventing themselves. You gotta realize, when you're in a band, you are eventually gonna get tired of playing the same style for going on 22 years. I'm proud of Metallica for once again showing that they can come up with something orginal. I will agree with most of the reviews that the sound quality itself leaves something to be desired, but for them, it's all about experimentation. I felt that the songwriting was great though, because they got the whole band involved this time. The other band members have emotions too, and they can contribute. They just introduced their third bassist (BTW, Robert is one of the best performers I've ever seen), and they're trying to figure out what works for them. They obviously put out a record they like, so as far as I'm concerned, they did their job. Besides, songs like "Dirty Window", and "Frantic" are very well written, and well performed. Everyone continues to complain about their new album, but you all know as well as I do, you are counting down the days until their next album comes out. St. Anger is a transitional album, and who knows, the next album could be better, could be worse. Either way, take it for what it's worth. There is only one certainty here. You may love Metallica, you may hate them, but one thing is for certain, you can't deny them. There, I stayed civil.

I own all the Metallica cd's except this one. It was sold
about 2 days after. Buy the Audioslave album.

Slade