- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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SpinThis is the album Metallica lifers have been waiting for: an inspired return to the complex savagery of old. [Jul 2003, p.109]
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The true masters have finally awakened from their slumber.
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''St. Anger'' is arguably the season's finest metal offering -- and the band's best since 1991's ''Metallica.''
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While St. Anger doesn't go back to the speedy, epic-crafting days of yesteryear, it's all balls: bad-ass rock and blistering, visceral lyrics.
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MojoThis is miffed and exemplary metal. [Jul 2003, p.108]
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UncutAgainst all odds, St. Anger constitutes the cutting edge of commercial yet aggressive heavy rock in 2003. [Aug 2003, p.106]
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St. Anger looks inward with a hard eye, and while it finds some grinning demons in that pit, it also unearths some of the sickest grooves of Metallica's 20+ year lifespan.
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BlenderOverall, this is the grimiest and grimmest of the band's Bob Rock productions. [#17, p.145]
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This is loud, expansive, unrepentant Metallica.
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Utterly raw and rocking.
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A ragged, cacophonous, raging beast of an album, it's not the most perfect album Metallica has ever produced, and it's a very bumpy ride for listeners, but the album's handful of high points are thrilling to hear.
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This is the sound of Metallica drawing back into themselves and their history.
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Q MagazineThey've never sounded this heavy or this pissed off. [Jul 2003, p.106]
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The production on St. Anger is abysmal.
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While there’s no denying that Metallica have produced a huge – and welcome – blast from the past, it also represents a monolithic slab of noise that stretched over 11 songs and 75 minutes is just too dense and daunting to be truly enjoyable.
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The guitars stumble in a monotone of mid-level, processed rattle; the drums don't propel as much as struggle to disguise an all-too-turgid pace; and the rage is both unfocused and leavened with too much narcissistic navel-gazing.
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Songs like "Frantic," "Dirty Window," and even the balladesque "Sweet Amber" stop and start, cut to pieces by groove-robbing edits that replace the guitar harmonies on which Metallica built an industry.
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St. Anger suffers mightily for its thin, washed-out sound.... A messy, unsatisfying misfire.
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Alternative PressThe guitars are processed into high-tech oblivion, and every song is eight minutes long when it should be five. [Aug 2003, p.100]
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What an utter mess.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 188 out of 409
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Mixed: 88 out of 409
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Negative: 133 out of 409
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Feb 8, 2014
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SeanMAug 11, 2003
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Apr 11, 2014