Product Description

'St. Anger' is Metallica's eighth album and the follow-up to 1997's 'Reload'. Produced by Bob Rock, the eleven track album features former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Robert Trujillo, who replaces original band member Jason Newsted. Resurrectingtheir old sound of brutal, uncompromising thrash metal, it features double-bass drumming, staccato rhythms and engagingvocal harmonies.

Track Listing

1. Frantic
2. St. Anger
3. Some Kind Of Monster
4. Dirty Window
5. Invisible Kid
6. My World
7. Shoot Me Again
8. Sweet Amber
9. The Unnamed Feeling
10. Purify
11. All Within My Hands

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4095 in Music
• Released on: 2007-07-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Enhanced, Explicit Lyrics
• Running time: 75 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
St. Anger shows that we should never underestimate the regenerative powers of Metallica. Following the stripped-down Load and Re-Load, they've returned to the raw, vitriolic savagery of their earlier canon, using 1984's Ride the Lightning as their template. The title track provides the psychic lynchpin of the album by combining the bombast and defiance of the band's earliest high-water marks with more deliberate lyrics and emotional nakedness. Equally cathartic is "Some Kind of Monster," a lumbering beast of a song that declares "This is the voice of silence no more". Despite that claim, there's an economy to these lyrics; James Hetfield's raw-toothed growl only occasionally punctuates the menacing soundscapes. In fact, "Dirty Windows", the standout track here, is a shimmering five-minute instrumental that's free of the baroque trappings that sometimes clutter the Metallica landscape. --Jaan Uhelszki, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

Give it a chance!
Okay okay, we've ALL heard about the dodgy snare drum sound and the lack of guitar solos on this album. Although going back to St Anger 5 years on and after the release of the stunning Death Magnetic I have to say that this album still doesn't deserve quite the panning it gets.

Opener Frantic is still one of Metallica's finest songs to date, and the title track shows a pretty fine display of lightning fast thrash metal, Some Kind Of Monster benefits from a monolithic riff, and Invisible Kid still has a fantastic chorus. Admittedly it's far from their best work, but just give it another try and I'm sure you'll find something on here that you like.

However, a slightly better production and a few guitar solos here and there would have made a world of difference.

Poor
Their worst album. I think it says a lot when a group famed for their sound of tight riffs, great drums and wild solos drops the solos and starts experimenting with their drum sound. Riffs are not creative in the same way one hears on the early albums. As a result musically quite dull to listen too. Of course huge video documented problems occurred over this period that really hurt the bands image. On tour Lars suffered a mysterious illness and couldn't play forcing them to cut their schedule. I think probably nervous break down, due to the reaction the band were starting to gain from their long-time thinking fans and the music critics who hated his drum sound on St Anger. Best forgotten and only for the most hard core, who probably bought it day 1 on release anyways..

Devils Advocate
I've wanted to review this for a while, mainly because I think it's a pretty good album and thought I should stick my head above the parapet and say so. So for what it's worth, here's my 10 cents on an album that's managed to polarise opinion since it was released, and what better time than a couple of days before the release of Death Magnetic, which seems to be garnering reasonable advance fan reviews, no mean feat for Metallica. Whether a back to basics album is good in the longer term is open to debate, Metallica haven't tended toward repeating themselves creatively up until now, which is mostly laudable, even if the output isn't what everyone wants.

Metallica's artistic direction is a subject of intense and contentious argument, everything revolving around an inordinate focus on whether they have produced anything of merit since ...And Justice for All. Broadly, fans seem to fall into camps that either love the Black Album, or see it as a sell-out and the catalyst for a long decline. I like the Black Album a lot and simply think the band hit a rich vein at the right time, okay the music is less complex and intricate, but none the less engaging for that. Nevertheless, it still pales by comparison to its predecessor, the frankly astonishing ...And Justice for All. In 1991 Metallica rode the razor's edge, touring heavily and arguably helping part the waves for Nirvana, et al, who carried the banner for guitar music for a few years. I've even read a quote by Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr.) saying that when he first heard 'Teen Spirit' he thought it was a great new Metallica song. Now there's a discussion...

St Anger is a stripped down and vitriolic album, reflecting the dysfunctional family last found having a collective mid-life crisis in 'Some Kind of Monster'. It's also their heaviest album to date and pretty fast to boot, although I appreciate that 75 minutes of unrelenting rage isn't the easiest listen. This is certainly nothing to do with bad production, so you shouldn't be put off by that, although the drum sound, as other reviews suggest, isn't for everyone. Subjectively, the album sounds enclosed and paranoid, which may be a deliberate effort to mirror the album's content? For me, the fundamental difference between this and the popular Metallica albums, is it's mood music. I guess what I mean is that I can put on Ride, Puppets, Justice and Metallica and listen all the way through at any time, for this I have to be in the right frame of mind. I think the way the band approached making this album meant they had to slough off their younger more immature skin, undergoing group catharsis and the end result manifests itself warts and all, in a very intense album.

No, it's not up there with Justice, Master of Puppets, Ride or the Black Album, but it's a noble effort from a talented, fearless and experimental band.