Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

As Metallica’s St. Anger turns ten years old it is worth remembering that upon release it polarised views of critics and fans alike. There were those that admired the stark honesty that Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and especially vocalist James Hetfield tried to convey after many years away from the studio. For others it was a departure they couldn’t cope with, the hard beating disturbed heart that was evident throughout the metal beasts first four albums had at first been replaced by a radio friendly outlook that bought extra fans to the band but also grinded the teeth of those who had come to expect a blistering hardcore sound on any album and then the further departure as they went more commercial. Something was lost between …And Justice For All, the so called Black album, Load/Reload and then in 2003 the album that sounds as clear as mud, St Anger.

Heavy Metal/Thrash, which ever sub-genre you desire to put a band into sometimes has the problem of not aging well. It takes moments of singular brilliance to make it still sound fresh years after it has been recorded. The metal monsters had more than achieved this feat with the albums Ride The Lightning, the brutality of Master of Puppets and the social awareness of …And Justice For All. They had even done it with the commercial sound of Black album but then depending on your point of view had become a pastiche of themselves and something radical really had to change to get back that immediacy, the vicious and fierce heart. The radical change came in 2003 and whilst it went completely the other way in which most fans might have expected. The radical makeover feels stunted, not really enjoyable and certainly makes the album languish down the wrong end of best-of lists that fans and casual observers might have.

What St. Anger managed to do though was break up the team that had been around since …And Justice For All. Gone was bassist Jason Newsted before the sessions got under way and whilst Robert Trujillo is credited as part of Metallica on the inside sleeve notes, the work is pretty much done by producer Bob Rock. It was sad to see Mr. Newsted leave and if he did have to go then Robert Trujillo was the right replacement. His work on the 2008 Death Magnetic album revitalises Metallica in such a way that those who followed the band from early on and sent them well on their way to being the best Metal group on the planet can only wish he had played more of a part in St. Anger.

St. Anger has a huge redeeming feature and that is in the heart-felt lyrics by James Hetfield. Dark, destructive, damning of his own life style and taken away from the music read like some extremely good poetry written by a tortured soul in the full throws of a colossal argument with his maker. Hetfield’s lyrics had always had the effect of capturing something in the ether that others couldn’t hope to put their finger on. Tracks from the groups past such as the impeding and ever increasing despair of Master of Puppets, perhaps the singularly greatest anti-war track by a heavy metal group in One, the look at the emotions associated with the death-penalty and conviction by the electric chair in Ride The Lightning and nuclear destruction in Blackened all weigh heavily in the corner of great and outstanding lyrics. Into this superior line up should be added Some Kind of Monster, My World and Purify. Purify’s lyrics read as if written in some sort of homage to the likes of Allen Ginsburg and his epic poem Howl or some violent future version of Anne Stevens confessional poetry.

For this reason, the exceptional video for the lead single from the album, St. Anger and an album cover that portrays the frustration, the fury, utter self-loathing and resentment that feels as though was in the band’s psyche during and leading up to recording the album the foursome must be congratulated but for the music itself, the muddy texture, the undisguised impression that it may have been an album too far for the fans who in some cases were feeling increasingly isolated from their heroes industrious past

St. Anger will perhaps always have the tag of the album that divides opinion most, in one respect without it, the band would not have got their bag together and come out with Death Magnetic but as an album, a piece by one of the most respected heavy metal bands of their era, it doesn’t have the warmth, that thrust of cold steel wrapped in armour inflicts upon a heart ready to erupt does.

Ian D. Hall