St. Anger: Garbage or underrated?

Pethead wrote:All I can say is I shall pray for you.

Don't be surprised if your prayers are answered by God allowing you to like St. Anger and making you want to shamelessly come down to my level to the bottom of the barrel to enjoy all the good stuff, where you will eventually start to enjoy Mistress Dread from Lulu too 

The best thing LuLu gave us:

Pethead wrote:Also, fast and aggressive isn’t a barometer of quality.

Amen.  Because if speed and aggression is all someone looks for in a band, I can show them 1,000's of bands who are fast and aggressive but their material is mediocre at best and poor at worst.

And yet still probably better than St. Anger!

I’m probably one of the bigger Metallica fanboys around here. I love Death Magnetic. I like Hardwired and 72 Seasons. I enjoy about 1/3—1/2 of the Loads. 

But I don’t think there’s a single good song on SA. There are some ideas and riffs that could form building blocks for decent songs, but as the album stands the songs just aren’t there.

If it wasn't Metallica no one would pay attention to SA, there's just too much better stuff out there.

Constantine wrote:

Pethead wrote:Also, fast and aggressive isn’t a barometer of quality.

Amen.  Because if speed and aggression is all someone looks for in a band, I can show them 1,000's of bands who are fast and aggressive but their material is mediocre at best and poor at worst.

Like for example Reign in Blood.

I actually probably like St. Anger more than Reign in Blood even though Angel of Death and Raining Blood are five star masterpieces. The rest of it is just meh.

Black Rider wrote:If it wasn't Metallica no one would pay attention to SA, there's just too much better stuff out there.

It's not like I choose to put this on often unless I'm doing band listen-throughs. But if these songs come on while I have Metallica on shuffle I'm not gonna skip them (though I might skip the second half of some because it's basically the exact same as the first half...)

Airola wrote:

Constantine wrote:

Pethead wrote:Also, fast and aggressive isn’t a barometer of quality.

Amen.  Because if speed and aggression is all someone looks for in a band, I can show them 1,000's of bands who are fast and aggressive but their material is mediocre at best and poor at worst.

Like for example Reign in Blood.

I actually probably like St. Anger more than Reign in Blood even though Angel of Death and Raining Blood are five star masterpieces. The rest of it is just meh.

I can't judge which one I like more since the only songs from Reign I know are the two great ones

StevenCressler wrote:I’m probably one of the bigger Metallica fanboys around here. I love Death Magnetic. I like Hardwired and 72 Seasons. I enjoy the Loads. And even though it's bad I enjoy St. Anger

That's how I'd put it. Though the thing with me is there's not a lot if music (or at least metal) I actually don't like. Hence why no matter the band, there's always albums people hate and I just think it's subpar but still enjoyable (other than Assimilation, you all know my opinion on that)

For the record I much prefer the worst Deliverance and Tourniquet albums over St. Anger

Airola wrote:For comparison, here's the same for the other Metallica albums (minus 72 Seasons):

KILL EM ALL
Hit the Lights ***
Jump in the Fire **½
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth **
Whiplash **½
Phantom Lord ***
Metal Militia ***

RIDE THE LIGHTNING

Ride the Lightning ***
For Whom the Bell Tolls ***
Trapped Under Ice ***
Creeping Death ****

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

...And Justice for All **
Eye of the Beholder **
Harvester of Sorrow **

METALLICA

Of Wolf and Man **½
The God That Failed **½

I just can't let this go unmolested. Alotta loony takes here IMAO.  Your metal criteria must be very different from mine.  I guess you dislike KEM tremendously and also rated the best songs 2 1/2, unless you're talking lyrics Jump In the Fire is tops.  

That's the two of the best songs on the Black album you rated 2 1/2.  

AFJA title track? Yeah, long, but still amazing, especially the bridge and solos.  Eye and Harvester also very good to great.

Creeping Death is the perfect metal song, possibly top 5 of all time, but at least you like it.  The title track is up there as well.  For Whom the Bell Tolls?  Overplayed, but still a classic.

I’ve been puzzled recently to see people diss the title track of AJfA. It’s always been one of my favorites on the album.

Pethead wrote:I’ve been puzzled recently to see people diss the title track of AJfA. It’s always been one of my favorites on the album.

Same. Such an awesome chorus, and a great message.

I've decided Cressler is here to educate the fogies here about SA an how incredible nu metal is.

I’m here to educate y’all about why As the World Bleeds is the weakest Theocracy album.

Superjuice wrote:

Airola wrote:For comparison, here's the same for the other Metallica albums (minus 72 Seasons):

KILL EM ALL
Hit the Lights ***
Jump in the Fire **½
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth **
Whiplash **½
Phantom Lord ***
Metal Militia ***

RIDE THE LIGHTNING

Ride the Lightning ***
For Whom the Bell Tolls ***
Trapped Under Ice ***
Creeping Death ****

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

...And Justice for All **
Eye of the Beholder **
Harvester of Sorrow **

METALLICA

Of Wolf and Man **½
The God That Failed **½

I just can't let this go unmolested. Alotta loony takes here IMAO.  Your metal criteria must be very different from mine.  I guess you dislike KEM tremendously and also rated the best songs 2 1/2, unless you're talking lyrics Jump In the Fire is tops.  

That's the two of the best songs on the Black album you rated 2 1/2.  

AFJA title track? Yeah, long, but still amazing, especially the bridge and solos.  Eye and Harvester also very good to great.

Creeping Death is the perfect metal song, possibly top 5 of all time, but at least you like it.  The title track is up there as well.  For Whom the Bell Tolls?  Overplayed, but still a classic.

I don't dislike it that much. I can appreciate its legacy but I've given it a chance over and over again but it never hits me the way it should.
From the Big Four debut albums it's still a bit better than Slayer's Show No Mercy, but it's nowhere near Killing Is My Business or Fistful of Metal.

This might sound like I'm trolling but actually one of the best things I enjoy in Kill Em All is James' voice! I have a soft spot for the kind of singing where the voice cracks a lot. For example one of my favorite vocal performances is by Devil Dan of Cross Examination in their album Menace 2 Sobriety. He changed his singing style a lot later because going with that would've destroyed his voice completely. I love actually great singers like Eric Adams from Manowar but I also love the singers who shamelessly let all of their inabilities shine but they clearly belt it out with no walls between them and the mike, with no false pretense.

The voice of James was best in Kill em All and Ride the Lightning, but obviously it wasn't objectively and technically the best as he clearly became an actual GOOD SINGER later, but for the music all the weakness in his voice worked better. Actually to make a crazy analogy, St. Anger is kind of like the voice of Hetfield in Kill em All! It's technically terrible and has tons of faults but it all gives the whole thing a more interesting and rougher atmosphere.


If you want to know what's my Metallica taste, here are all the five and four star songs:

FIVE STARS:
Fight Fire with Fire (1984)
Fade to Black (1984)
Battery (1986)
Master of Puppets (1986)
Damage, Inc. (1986)
One (1988)
Dyers Eve (1988)
The Unforgiven (1991)
Nothing Else Matters (1991)
Fuel (1997)
All Within My Hands (2003)

FOUR STARS:
Creeping Death (1984)
The Call of Ktulu (1984)
Disposable Heroes (1986)
Leper Messiah (1986)
Blackened (1988)
Enter Sandman (1991)
The Unforgiven II (1997)
Sweet Amber (2003)
All Nightmare Long (2008)
The Unforgiven III (2008)
My Apocalypse (2008)

I have to say that Thorn Within is a song that has five star moments but the rest of the song falls too short to get even close to those lists.



But hey, here's a real HOT TAKE:
Even though Kill em All is very down on the list for me, I would still listen to that than any Testament or Exodus albums. Now those are bands I haven't been able to get into at all. I really should try it again but the past tries have all not ended well.

Airola wrote:

TZ75 wrote:

Airola wrote:Miles better than the last two albums.

It's perhaps Metallica's most aggressive album, and probably the fastest album too.

It's a furious thing with its faults.

Definitely underrated.

Nothing on Anger is as fast as Fight Fire with Fire, Damage Inc and Dyers Eve.

See, here's the thing:

Even though Stay of Execution has one of the fastest tracks Deliverance has ever made (Entombed) no-one can say it's the fastest album by Deliverance because it's just one track that gets fast.
On St. Anger almost every single song goes into a fast thrash beat at some point, and those few that don't have fast moments in other ways. The ratio of songs that do that is probably higher than in any other Metallica album.
Sometimes the songs have slooow riffs going on but Lars starts banging on the snare drum (or a tin bucket) like there's no tomorrow.

St. Anger is kind of like if Master of Puppets was filled with tracks like Disposable Heroes that might be mostly a slow/mid-paced song but takes fast spurts every now and then. I don't mean to say that any of the songs in St. Anger are even nearly as good as that track, lol  But my point is that St. Anger has surprisingly many sudden fast thrash moments throughout the record.

Well if you put it that way… yeah. 

There’s a lot of weird and almost random bursts of energy going on throughout. It’s just the quality of the songs is more juvenile compared to the standard they set early on. Even most of KEA sounds better put together than SA. 

I like the energy on Anger, but they did dumb down the overall songwriting. Imagine if they released Anger right after Justice. That would be a bigger shock than TBA’s criticism (before it became a classic). 

By the point Metallica put our Anger, they already tainted their thrash hero image with the Load albums. I don’t think TBA is as bad as some would say… it has some good tunes. Especially Sad But True!

Pethead wrote:If you like it, fine, but it’s definitely gonna surprise people. Just like when I say Turbo>British Steel. (Which it is).

Both of you have extreme “hot takes”! 

But I will say that I enjoy Turbo more than St. Anger.

Airola wrote:

Pethead wrote:Because those aren’t good songs just because they’re fast and aggressive. They’re fast and aggressive and are good songs, as well.

As is All Within My Hands. One of the best Metallica songs. Five stars, no question. Sweet Amber is a four star song, easily.


Ok, here it goes, all St. Anger songs rated. Five stars being the max.

Frantic ***½
St. Anger ***½
Some Kind of Monster ***
Dirty Window ***
Invisible Kid ***
My World ***
Shoot Me Again ***½
Sweet Amber ****
The Unnamed Feeling **½
Purify **½
All Within My Hands *****

By chance, were you feeling a little lightheaded when you scored that? 

Get some rest my friend.

Airola wrote:

Constantine wrote:

Pethead wrote:Also, fast and aggressive isn’t a barometer of quality.

Amen.  Because if speed and aggression is all someone looks for in a band, I can show them 1,000's of bands who are fast and aggressive but their material is mediocre at best and poor at worst.

Like for example Reign in Blood.

I actually probably like St. Anger more than Reign in Blood even though Angel of Death and Raining Blood are five star masterpieces. The rest of it is just meh.

Even with the criticism that Reign gets here at the CMR, it’s shocking that you prefer the sloppy and out of tune SA over it! Let’s be honest, Reign is downgraded mostly for the lyrical content… 

SA is plain bad musically and the lyrics are kinda midlife crisis cringe. 

At least Reign is tightly played and Lombardo had a great drum sound and performance.

Superjuice wrote:

Airola wrote:For comparison, here's the same for the other Metallica albums (minus 72 Seasons):

KILL EM ALL
Hit the Lights ***
Jump in the Fire **½
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth **
Whiplash **½
Phantom Lord ***
Metal Militia ***

RIDE THE LIGHTNING

Ride the Lightning ***
For Whom the Bell Tolls ***
Trapped Under Ice ***
Creeping Death ****

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

...And Justice for All **
Eye of the Beholder **
Harvester of Sorrow **

METALLICA

Of Wolf and Man **½
The God That Failed **½

I just can't let this go unmolested. Alotta loony takes here IMAO.  Your metal criteria must be very different from mine.  I guess you dislike KEM tremendously and also rated the best songs 2 1/2, unless you're talking lyrics Jump In the Fire is tops.  

That's the two of the best songs on the Black album you rated 2 1/2.  

AFJA title track? Yeah, long, but still amazing, especially the bridge and solos.  Eye and Harvester also very good to great.

Creeping Death is the perfect metal song, possibly top 5 of all time, but at least you like it.  The title track is up there as well.  For Whom the Bell Tolls?  Overplayed, but still a classic.

I’m glad you chimed in! 

I am puzzled by his lack of love for the album that basically started the thrash genre. 

Also, The Four Horsemen is five stars easily! 

In addition, No Remorse and Metal Militia are great too.

Then Airola gives a mere 3 and 2.5 for Sad But True and Holier Than Thou? 

Wow man… those are my two favorites. And Holier is one of the only songs that resembles 80’s Metallica.

TZ75 wrote:

Airola wrote:

Constantine wrote:

Pethead wrote:Also, fast and aggressive isn’t a barometer of quality.

Amen.  Because if speed and aggression is all someone looks for in a band, I can show them 1,000's of bands who are fast and aggressive but their material is mediocre at best and poor at worst.

Like for example Reign in Blood.

I actually probably like St. Anger more than Reign in Blood even though Angel of Death and Raining Blood are five star masterpieces. The rest of it is just meh.

Even with the criticism that Reign gets here at the CMR, it’s shocking that you prefer the sloppy and out of tune SA over it! Let’s be honest, Reign is downgraded mostly for the lyrical content… 

SA is plain bad musically and the lyrics are kinda midlife crisis cringe. 

At least Reign is tightly played and Lombardo had a great drum sound and performance.

I don't care much about what the lyrics are.
I mean hey, I like Manowar too and they are singing "if you're not into metal, you're not my friend"

When it comes to playing tightly and having a great drum sound and performance, I'll just point you to look into The Evil Addiction Destroying Machine which is probably the best example of those qualities not making a good record

Honestly of course Reign in Blood is not a bad album, but by looking at how much appreciated it is - many saying it's the all time best metal album - and then looking into how much of it just is forgettable for me I think it's a very good example of an overrated album.

As it was already said, being fast and aggressive alone doesn't make any album good. There needs to be something special within all that speed and aggression. For me, while Dark Angel's Darkness Descends doesn't have a single song that is as good as Angel of Death or Raining Blood and while I can't probably really even tell which song is which for the most part, Darkness Descends still is a lot better album on the whole than Reign in Blood. There is that extra something in the riffs, in the aggression, in the attitude and in the performance that makes in unbelievably listenable and one of my all time favorite metal albums.

Agreed with the above. RiB isn’t even a top 3 Slayer album.