So here we are again, more than five years after a whole slew of you ripped me a new one for my enthusiastic review of the last and most controversial METALLICA album ever, 2003's "St. Anger". Unlike many critics — especially in the UK press — who came out equally unabashed in their praise only to later recant their words in the wake of a fierce fan uprising against the album, I stand by my statements at the time: I think "St. Anger" was a great album. If I am to add one caveat to that, one slight revision, I would say now that it was and is a great album — for what it was.

And what was it? It was certainly not your typical METALLICA album. It was, simply, a scream of primal, inarticulate, incoherent rage, the sound of a band tearing itself down and trying to build itself back up again after denying for far too long the many internal issues that brought it to a loss of self-identity and the brink of self-destruction. It was the sound of a group of aging multi-millionaires discarding their entire history up to that point, and figuratively placing themselves back in a shitty, smelly garage, one light bulb burning above them, making an unholy, nearly unlistenable racket just for the sheer thrill of doing so, and fuck what everybody else thought.

Read the complete review courtesy of Blabbermouth Magazine