Metallica - St. Anger
Metallica
St. Anger
Release Date: June 5th, 2003
Label: Elektra
Review by Jared Stossel
In January 2001, bassist Jason Newsted departed from Metallica. It was a curveball thrown at the band working diligently to prepare the follow-up to 1997’s Reload. Sure, the band had released the Garage, Inc. covers album the year after, but fans were itching for some brand new original material from metal’s biggest act. The band – vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, and guitarist Kirk Hammett – hunkered down in a makeshift studio on the Presidio of San Francisco to begin crafting their next piece, only to have bassist Newsted depart days later.
It would be two years until their newest addition, Robert Trujillo, would join the group and round out the lineup of an outstanding era of Metallica. But for now, the three original members were on their own, reunited with producer Bob Rock (who offered to play bass on the album while they searched for a replacement.) The sessions for St. Anger were underway, while simultaneously, the band was undergoing group therapy sessions to work out their tension. Words were said, feelings were laid out, and recording was underway. Yet all of that would come to a grinding halt in July 2001 when Hetfield entered rehab for alcoholism. Recording would resume nearly a year later.
St. Anger is easily considered Metallica’s most divisive album; people either like it or really hate it. The sounds on the band’s eighth full-length are that of the biggest band in the world imploding under the pressure of trying to stay afloat and having to deal with nearly every possible issue that comes with being a rock band while the record button is on. It is a rough listen, both from a mixing and writing standpoint - although I did find it grew on me a little more after multiple listens. There were moments where I couldn’t tell if I didn’t like a song solely because of the way it was mixed, or if the writing wasn’t up to par with what Metallica had usually provided its fans.
At one hour and fifteen minutes, St. Anger is one of the band’s longest albums, with each song stretched to its breaking point. Fans and critics alike have pointed out two characteristics of this album that set it apart from other records in the band’s catalog, inner tensions notwithstanding – the utter lack of guitar solos that are a staple in the construction of nearly any Metallica song, and the “tin drum” sound from Ulrich’s performance, as a result of turning the snares off during the tracking sessions for the record. Hetfield’s vocal delivery is bumpy, yet at the same time, it’s honest, raw, and the sound of someone trying to find themselves. I liken Hetfield’s vocal performances on St. Anger to Eminem’s on Relapse; off the booze for the first time, trying to figure out how to be themselves without a crutch, and pushing through the pain.
Despite being rough around the edges and a point of contention for even the most diehard Metallica fans, St. Anger went on to be certified 6x platinum (i.e., six million copies sold). The eleven tracks that make it up are among the least performed in the band’s extensive catalog, but the creation and release of St. Anger needed to happen. Three important things happened as a result of the album: the film Some Kind of Monster, which documented the band’s entire recording process and therapy sessions, serves as one of the best rock documentaries of all time; the band founded the All Within My Hands Foundation, named after the album’s final track, as a means to help create sustainable communities by supporting workforce education, the fight against hunger and other critical local services; and of course, it led the band to create some of the best material of their career, with the subsequent releases of Death Magnetic and Hardwired…To Self Destruct.
St. Anger is the sound of a band exorcising its demons in real-time. It is more nu-metal and alternative in style than its predecessors, and it serves as a record that even when you’re at the top of the world, everyone can have a bad day. However, sometimes you need to have a bad day to know where to go for your best day ever.
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