Ok, I realize I will get bombarded with all kinds of remarks over this one but its the truth. To God and myself be true. I like St. Anger. Always have. I was excited when it came out back in 03, I played it over and over. I can see where a lot of people dont like it and i could have done without the trash can snare and the lyrics could have been better and solos would have been nice. But when it comes right down to it, ITS METALLICA! I do see it as the "worse" album however because there are two skip over songs for me on that one (shoot me again, purify) as there are none on everything else.

It sounds rushed, poorly recorded, and like the songs are still in the "garage jam" phase of being refined. It's just horrifyingly incomplete to me.


It pains me that they EVER considered this a "finished product"....I can see the potential buried under the flaws though, and REALLY wish they'd have taken the song roots they have here and polished them up with the refining and recording processes from the Blackk album...this thing COULD have been SOOO good.


Alas, it is not, and ranks as the lone official work of theirs I have NEVER owned.

Actually the whole "garage band" thing is what gets me into it. I dont know why. Probably because any band I ever had never really got out of that phase and I just related to it. It was even cooler cause it was my favorite band

The rehearsal disc that came with the album sounded better than the album itself.

That snare drum ruins the album, if they re-recorded the drum track it reaaly would improve the album. That snare makes my head hurt. BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

I agree with Ben Grimm about the snare drum--just made it sound awful. The album would have been better had they...number one: spent more time with better writing (I mean "My lifestyle...determines my deathstyle"...a true line, but awkward poetry)...and dropped the f word (I mean..this is Metallica...not rap). And number two: It just needed better production quality and ditched the so-called garage effect.
It's not that the songs on the album were really bad...they just needed to be, re-written/re-worked and tracked better.

The production is a joke. Anything enjoyable about the songs is ruined by the beyond demo-ish recording. I mean, we have one of the most well known bands and producers with a huge budget and we get something that sounds like an amateurish demo with trash can drums. I bought this the day it was released and honestly thought it was a joke, when I first put the album on. Unfortunately, the joke never ends and the whole album is terrible.

I do like a song or two, but all the songs sound unfinished and rushed. The lack of solos is very apparent. It's obvious the songs were written with solos in mind and certain parts of the songs are empty without them. Cool or not, guitar solos are a part of the songwriting process, especially in metal. Also, the bass guitar might as well not even be there. You'd think with the producer playing bass, you might hear some decent bass guitar.

If this album had been released by any other band, no one would have given it the time of day. But because it has the Metallica name on it, it sells millions of copies and fans have to find something they like about it.

If you like it, that's great. Maybe there's something some of us aren't catching. I mostly agree with what others say about it.

Lars shoulda called it St. Clanger.
Sounds like he's hitting a Russian submarine hull to me...

horrible horrible album.

Oh well, at least they made up for it by releasing Death Magnetic last year. Heck, producer Rick Rubin was like a long awaited messiah for Metallica. Hopefully, "The Big M" is back on track now.

I've never been a big fan of Metallica production...my taste, though.

There are underground bands out there, who release demo quality material on a shoestring budget, whom I enjoy way more than St Anger.

I got it for $.49 and I still feel a little bristled about spending that for it..

I got my copy for free, I won a free album download. And I was just getting back into secular metal so i figured i'd download Metallica's latest at the time.....I felt ripped off and I got it for free.
Honestly some of the songs have real potential but need to be re-recorded.

I didnt start liking some songs till after seeing the documentry "Some Kind of Monster" I do like Frantic the best from that album but all in all they should have used a diff drummer or a diff drum set cuz Lars was banging on garbage cans as far as I am concerned

Wait, theres such thing as a "good" Metallica album. lol

I had read so many bad reviews that I didn't bother buying it new. I waited about a year and then bought it super cheap on eBay--then I listened to it. Blech! I could put up with the awful production, but the songs weren't anything I wanted to hear twice. It did not stay on my iPod for long.