Metallica - St. Anger

*=Staff's pick	Frantic St. Anger Some Kind Of Monster Dirty Window Invisible Kid* My World Shoot Me Again Sweet Amber Unnamed Feeling* Purify All Within My Hands

Genre	Thrash Metal	James Hetfield	Vocals
Tracks	11	James Hetfield	Guitar
Runningtime	76 Min.	Kirk Hammet	Guitar
Label	Mercury Records	Robert Trujillo	Bass
Release	05 June 2003	Lars Ulrich	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

I think it is safe to skip the introduction of the band, and what they have done in the past, as well as how the previous material sound. It should be very well known by any person that claims to have any connection to metal at all, and if not - this might be the wrong page to surf around on. I might as well attack the core here, and talk about the vastly debated sound and songstructure on this album. It has been an object for hot debates for months and months before the release.

It is not nu-metal (actually far from it if you ask me), and it is not as badly produced as many say. It is raging thrash of the old school with elements of hardcoreriffs and with a handful fragments of ordinary heavy metal. The drums are thin, but not as bad as it is projected in media from time to time, and the guitarsound appeals at least me most of the time. There is no reason to why something like this couldn't turn out to be good metal - if only the songs are good. But they aren't.

In the best moments I enjoy some really good riffs, the power behind it all and a few verselines (the song Invisible Kid is a good example), but the moments are almost nonexisting. The material can be compared to some third class thrash band from the middle of the 80's. Sure, they wanted to go back to their roots, and Metallica was a thrashband in the middle of the 80's - but they were never this bad. Then they would never have reached further than some local clubs.

This is just not good. Better songs, more structure (it sounds too schizophrenic), and a bit more melody/harmony baked into it, then I see no reason to why a next album based on the same concept couldn't be enjoyable. But for now it is confusing. The fans overall don't seem to like it or do in best case just accept it for now in wait for the next step, and I don't see that any new fans can be gained by this.

See also review of: Beyond Magnetic , Death Magnetic

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	6	3

Summary
3 chalices of 10 - Tommy