The majority of this album is good in moments. What I mean is that certain parts of songs are good, but as a cohesive unit they are pretty awful. "All Within My Hands", the closing track, is a perfect example of this. It's a bloated eight plus minutes long, and it embodies everything that is wrong with the album. The parts where Hetfield actually sings "all within my hands" are pretty cool, but the rest of the song is a disaster. Other moments in the album are strong too, like the break in "Shoot Me Again." Once again, it too is a mess.

     There are only a select few songs that stand out here as legitimate pieces of fluent music. The title track "St. Anger" is a highlight, "Sweet Amber" is truly awesome, and "Frantic" is a solid track with a catchy rythym. Hetfield maintains a fine consistency in terms of his lyrics - comeplling as usual. It's just a shame that the rest of the album couldn't live up to the strength of the three songs I mentioned.

     My question is - what went wrong here? Why is this album such a tremendous departure from the rest of their work? It's not even a throwback to their younger days from the 80s - those albums were some of the best the metal genre had to offer as they were technical and complex masterpieces. St. Anger sounds nothing like that, not even close. Metallica must have disliked this album after they made it because their newest album, 2008's Death Magnetic sounds like a true throwback to the old days and makes no reference in any way to St. Anger - if anything, it defies it because Death Magnetic contains a flurry of guitar solos.

     If St. Anger were made by any other band, it would have been easily dismissed. This album only garnered any sort of merit because of the band itself. Metallica is one of the finest bands of the past few decades, and with good reason. St. Anger is the one of the most disappointing albums in recent memory, and it's surprising that Metallica, with its incredible talents, could release such a subpar album.

     Regardless St. Anger has some highlights, but they are few and far between. It's one major plus is a live-studio DVD included with the CD that features the band performing the entire album in the studio with new bassist Robert Trujillo (producer Bob Rock played bass on the album itself). The live DVD makes the album much more listenable, but it doesn't save it from its inherent issues. In any case, I'm glad it was included.

TRACK HIGHLIGHTS:

"St. Anger"

"Sweet Amber"

"Frantic"

-Kurt L.

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