Artist: Metallica
Album Title: St Anger
Label: Elektra
Bones:
Summary: Pointy
Reviewed By: Sparticus

If you've been a Metallica fan for any period of time you'll know that every album since 1984 has been different from the last. Each time they step into a studio they evolve. Each time they put out a CD they lose two fans and pick up a new one.

With this one step forward, two steps back attitude it's a wonder there's anyone left buying their stuff, but I guess metal fans are hard to break (I stuck my hand in one once) and I guess that if you try and break a metal fan you'll only end up bleeding. Maybe that explains the cover of load.

Sneaky metaphors aside, St Anger is exactly the kind of record you'd expect Metallica to make - in that you wouldn't really know what to expect from them.

If I had to have guessed, I would have said that the guitar sounds on a new Metallica album would be similar to the loads, but the emotion would be a bit sharper. The production would be very 2003, but they'd be hinting back to their older days at the pointy metal end of a pointy metal guitar.

I must admit I was a huge fan of the black album, as the pointy Metallica logos on my grade 8 pencil case will testify. But I wouldn't buy St Anger if I didn't have too. I was discarded somewhere between Load and Napster.