I have now been, in some way, shape or form, reviewing music for over 35 years. I have heard some of the most amazing compositions ever put to paper and recreated onto magnetic tape or computer hard drives. I\u2019ve had the privilege to listen to some of the greatest albums over a wide variety of genres.<\/p>\n
I have also heard the dredges of the barrel, whether from independent artists who needed many, many more music lessons or from seasoned professionals who just should have known better than to release the aural equivalent of shit onto the market. I\u2019m not going to name artists or specific albums; if you\u2019ve been reading this site for any length of time, you\u2019ll be able to compile a short list that made my<\/i> short list.<\/p>\n
And then, there\u2019s St. Anger<\/i>, the oft-maligned 2003 release from Metallica. Coming off the one-two punch of the departure of long-time bassist-slash-emotional punching bag Jason Newsted and the forced hiatus due to guitarist\/vocalist James Hetfield\u2019s stay in rehab, this has been labeled as one of the worst albums of all time.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get a few things clear: this is not the worst album ever in the history of recorded music. It\u2019s not even the worst album Metallica has done\u2014though, I\u2019ll admit it would have held that title until the release of Lulu<\/i>, the group\u2019s 2011 collaboration with Lou Reed.<\/p>\n
Oh, make no mistake\u2026 this album is not good, by any definition. But it also isn\u2019t the steaming, festering pile of cow dung it\u2019s been portrayed as. If anything, it\u2019s a snapshot of its time that dares to suggest that\u2014perhaps\u2014Metallica should have taken more time following Hetfield\u2019s return to the band to release an album, even if they were long overdue to do so.<\/p>\n
St Anger<\/i> is vilified for a number of reasons\u2014first and foremost being the tin-drum snare sound that Lars Ulrich chose to use. And, yes, it is grating on the ears at times\u2014just listen to the title track as exhibit \u201cA.\u201d However, there are<\/i> times that suggest going with this sound might have been a good idea. The closing number \u201cAll Within My Hands\u201d does seem to utilize the lack of snares on the snare to the benefit of the overall sound of the song. If anything, I\u2019d have suggested that Ulrich maybe could have utilized two snare drums\u2014one with the traditional sound, one sans the snare wires\u2014and worked both drums into the mix.<\/i><\/p>\n
Second on people\u2019s shit list is the simplistic, repetitive lyrics from Hetfield. Okay, they all have a point there. Granted, Hetfield has never been the most poetic lyricist out there, but he does seem to fall all too often into a pattern of repetition that, in the end, hurts the overall efforts. \u201cFrantic,\u201d \u201cShoot Me Again\u201d and \u201cMy World\u201d serve as proof of this. It\u2019s here that I\u2019d have argued that Metallica might have benefited from taking more time to write and record what became St. Anger<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n
Finally, people complain about the lack of guitar solos from Kirk Hammett. Whether this was Hetfield\u2019s decision or the band\u2019s, there is a strong argument to having solos in Metallica\u2019s music\u2014hell, it was Hammett\u2019s shredding, among other things, that brought them the attention they rightfully got.<\/i><\/p>\n
All of this said, one can\u2019t deny that St. Anger<\/i>\u2014even at its deepest core\u2014has some merit. If anything, this was to metal what primal scream therapy was to John Lennon\u2019s early solo works; it captured a human being (Hetfield) at his most vulnerable, having been forced to face and defeat the demons that haunted him. The 11 songs that make up St. Anger<\/i> capture a humbled, scared and pissed off Hetfield having to face the world on all new terms\u2014and the music was his manner of expressing what he was going through.<\/i><\/p>\n
This, however, hardly saves this disc from being one of the weakest releases in Metallica\u2019s catalog. I can\u2019t say it\u2019s a complete failure, but it hardly belongs on the same shelf as Master Of Puppets<\/i> or Metallica<\/i>. It is what it is\u2014and we can (and should) appreciate it as such. Doesn\u2019t mean we have to like it or listen to it a lot, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5706],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-46805","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-metallica","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46805"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46805"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}