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With St Anger, vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield is out of rehab and back on the job of leading the band that made heavy metal what it is today.

It has been a rocky five years since Metallica’s last two companion studio albums, Load and Reload, received a lukewarm reception from hard-core fans; and while a covers album and a live album have kept them listening, the question always was would the next new album reinstate their legend? With over 100 million albums sold, it’s almost pointless trying to argue whether it’s good or not  when you’ve basically created a genre, you can do whatever the hell you like and the masses will buy it. 

I have never been enough of a Metallica fan to do this, however, granted partly by the fact that their catalogue always topped the lists of evil-albums-a-young-Christian-should-never-buy” which proliferated in the church environment of my upbringing. It was only really when the more accessible tunes of their self-titled, mainstream-monster-hit album of 1991 started saturating the radio that I gained any appreciation for their music and broader influence. It was really the title of this latest release that pricked my interest enough to shell out the required dollars. I wondered, what does Metallica have to be angry about anymore (apart from Napster) successful millionaires that they are? 

To start with, St Anger is nothing like this recent “pop” musical phase of Metallica’s career. Rhythm, not melody, is the focus, much more like their earlier days as thrash metal pioneers. I’ll leave those comparisons to the hard-core fan base, but it is that basic, raw, aggressive, grunty, heavy metal sound - equal parts revving Harley-Davidson engine, steel-door slamming and blunt instrument pounding. It is, however, a metal sound that would seem more at home now in a small, sweaty club, rather than the big arenas of the last ten years.

Bizarrely, there are none of the signature solos by lead-guitarist Kirk Hammett. He might as well have not have played for all the power chording, usually managed by Hetfield. As such, it lacks a little color, and after a 70 minute onslaught it becomes a little numbing. Much has also been said already about Lars Ulrich’s drums on this record, particularly the persistent ping of his snare in every song. It sounds as if he’s belting a tin mop bucket with a wooden spoon; nicely unpolished perhaps, but frequently irritating. 

If every Metallica album before this was accompanied by Hetfield living out the great metal cliché of personal debauchery, then St Anger could be seen as the therapy session. In beatifying his anger, Hetfield seems to be letting go and letting God, as the Alcoholic’s Anonymous twelve-step program states. Every track is a treatise of some sort about coping with his addiction and the painful, ongoing recovery process. The first track kicks off the intense navel-gazing:

If I could have my wasted days back
Would I use them to get back on track?
Stop to warm at karma’s burning
Or look ahead, but keep on turning? 
Do I have the strength to know how I’ll go? 
Can I find it inside, to deal with what I shouldn’t know? 
My lifestyle determines my deathstyle. 
Keep searching, keep on searching. This search goes on. 
(“Frantic”) 

St Anger round my neck, he never gets respect
F*** it all and f***ing no regrets, I hit the lights on these dark sets
Medallion noose, I hang myself … I’m madly in anger with you
(“St Anger”) 

Am I who I think I am? 
I look out my window and see it’s gone wrong
My court is in session and now I slam my gavel down.
I’m judge and I’m jury and I’m executioner too. 
I drink from the cup of denial. I’m judging the world from my throne. 
(“Dirty Window”) 

Who’s in charge of my head today?
Dancing devils in angel’s way
God, it feels like it only rains on me. 
I’m out of my head, out of my head
Get ‘em out of my head, get ‘em out. 
Enough’s enough.
(“My World”) 

I just wanna get the f*** away from me
I rage, I glaze, I hurt, I hate
I hate it all. Why? Why? Why me?
(“The Unnamed Feeling”) 

Brendan Boughen 6/22/2003