St. Anger is the eighth studio album by the American thrash/heavy metal band, Metallica. The album lasts a duration of 75:01. It was released on June 5, 2003 by Elektra Records.

St. Anger displays a raw and loud sound that is a huge departure from Metallica's former sound. The production is very raw and unrefined and there is a complete absence of guitar solos that I find to be a major weakness for this album. The raw production of the album does not make it any heavier and instead it causes it to sound really sloppy.

The band decided to bring back Bob Rock to produce his final album with the band. This was obviously a mistake because his production is sloppy and clearly not focused. Hetfield’s vocals are really rough on this album are really rough and delivered horribly on pretty much every single song. Hammett is pretty much absent from the record as he does not record a single guitar solo or memorable riff. The most infamous performance though comes from Lars Ulrich thanks to his notorious snare drum that sounds like he’s beating on a trash can for the majority of the record.

There aren’t any good songs to be found on this record, but I do enjoy the energetic opening of “Frantic” which is still poorly written, but at least it’s listenable. “The Unnamed Feeling” has a memorable chorus, but fails during its verses. All of the other songs are pretty much abysmal due to horrible songwriting, messy production, and underwhelming performances.

St. Anger is the one Metallica album that is a disappointment to listen to. It may be heavier than Load and Reload, but it does not even come close to having the same quality as those albums. James Hetfield's very poor vocal performance, Hammett's lack of guitar solos, the song writing, and the production value are all major weaknesses with this record. There are a couple listenable songs on this album, but this record has many of the band's worst tracks.

Rating: 1/5