St. Anger is the eighth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on June 5, 2003, through Elektra Records in the United States and Vertigo Records elsewhere. It was the last Metallica album released through Elektra and the final collaboration between Metallica and longtime producer Bob Rock, with whom the band had worked since 1990. This is also Metallica's only album without an official bassist, as Jason Newsted left the band prior to the recording sessions. Rock played in Newsted's place, while Robert Trujillo joined the band following its completion. Although he does not play on the album, Trujillo is listed as a member in the liner notes and appears in photos with the band in the album's booklet.
Recording began in April 2001 but was postponed after rhythm guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield entered rehabilitation for alcoholism and various other addictions, and did not resume until May 2002. The recording is the subject of the 2004 documentary film Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. St. Anger departed from Metallica's signature style with an alternative metal style, raw production, metallic drum sound, and no guitar solos. The artwork was created by frequent Metallica collaborator Pushead.
St. Anger was intended for release on June 10, 2003, but was released five days earlier due to concerns over unlicensed distribution via peer-to-peer file sharing networks. Despite mixed reviews, it debuted at the top of sales charts in 14 countries, including the US Billboard 200. Metallica spent two years touring to promote the album. In 2004, the lead single, "St. Anger", won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. St. Anger was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping two million copies in the US; it has sold nearly six million copies worldwide.
Recording and musical style
Metallica rented an old United States Army barracks on the Presidio of San Francisco, and converted it into a makeshift studio in January 2001. As plans were being made to begin writing and recording their first album in nearly five years, the band postponed the recording because of bassist Jason Newsted's departure from Metallica on January 17, 2001, with Newsted stating his departure was due to "private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love". Due to the difficulty in immediately finding or auditioning for a replacement for Newsted to write and record with so close to the rescheduled sessions, Metallica accepted an offer from Bob Rock to play bass on the album in Newsted's place, and stated they would find an official bass player upon the album's completion. Hetfield returned to the band in December 2001, but was only allowed to work on the album from noon to 4:00 PM as the band resumed recording on April 12, 2002. Due to his personal problems, as well as Metallica's internal struggles, the band hired a personal enhancement coach, Phil Towle. This, and the recording of the album, was documented by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky and released in 2004 as the film Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Metallica abandoned their Presidio studio and instead recorded at a new studio in San Rafael, California, known as "HQ", from May 2002 until April 2003. 15 tracks from the Presidio sessions were ultimately unused.
Hetfield stated that the album was written with "a lot of passion". He said, "There's two years of condensed emotion in this. We've gone through a lot of personal changes, struggles, epiphanies, it's deep. It's so deep lyrically and musically. The band purposely wanted a raw sound on the album, so that Rock did not polish the sound while mixing. The band desired the raw sound because of the depth of the emotion they felt and did not want to "mess with it". The album represented Bob Rock's first ever all-digital project, even though analogue was used for mastering, he said: "The digital just sounded good," he explains. "It was so raw and in-your-face, and the guys really loved it. Kirk didn't want to go back to analogue and soften the guitars. If you stood in front of his amp, that sound was coming through an NS10, and if you go into your car and listen, it still sounds the same. It sounds like you're right in front of his speaker cabinet. Good or bad, that's what you're hearing, and he loved that, so we wanted to retain it."
With the guitars recorded in Drop C tuning, (with the exceptions of "Dirty Window", "Invisible Kid" and "The Unnamed Feeling", in drop C#, G# and A#, respectively), St. Anger is seen as a departure from the band's previous work, and nu metal. The album also uses strong elements of groove metal and speed metal. Rock stated, "We made a promise to ourselves that we'd only keep stuff that had integrity. We didn't want to make a theatrical statement by adding overdubs." Rock said the group spent only "15 minutes" on the drum sound, with fewer microphones than usual.
Artwork
Brian Schroeder designed the album cover and interior artwork for St. Anger. Schroeder has designed a number of items for Metallica in the past, including liner artwork of ...And Justice for All, several single covers, and many T-shirts; however, the album marks his first studio album cover art for the band. Originally, according to Metallica's official website, four different limited color variations of the cover were planned, but the idea was eventually scrapped.
Release and promotion
St. Anger was released on June 5, 2003. It was originally scheduled for June 10, but due to Metallica's previous battle with Napster and fear that it would be released illegally onto peer-to-peer file sharing networks, the band pushed the release date ahead by five days. A special edition of the album was released with a bonus DVD, featuring live, in-the-studio rehearsals of all of the St. Anger tracks. First week sales of the album were 417,000 copies, and it debuted at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, as well as in 30 other countries around the world. In 2004, Metallica won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for the title track.
thumb|right|Metallica playing live in support of St. Anger
After St. Angers release, Metallica embarked on a tour that lasted nearly two years. The first leg was the U.S. 2003 Summer Sanitarium Tour with support from Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Linkin Park, and Mudvayne. After Summer Sanitarium, the band began the Madly in Anger with the World Tour with support from Godsmack, Lostprophets, and Slipknot (both on certain European dates), which lasted until late 2004. The St. Anger songs "Frantic", "St. Anger", "Dirty Window" and "The Unnamed Feeling" were performed frequently during the tour. "Some Kind of Monster" was also played live, but not as often as other songs on the album, and “Sweet Amber” was played only once. The album tracks were altered when played live; sometimes they were shortened, or in some cases a guitar solo was added. Sometimes, only one song from the album was played live.
By 2009, the songs from St. Anger were completely absent from Metallica's set lists. After "Frantic" was performed on October 21, 2008, songs from the album would entirely disappear from set lists on major tours,
Metallica also released four singles from St. Anger. The order of the releases was: "St. Anger", "Frantic", "The Unnamed Feeling" and "Some Kind of Monster". On the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart, these singles charted at number 2, number 21, number 28 and number 19, respectively. Promotional music videos were also made for all four of the songs. These videos can be found on Metallica's DVD video collection, titled The Videos 1989-2004, and the video for "Some Kind of Monster" can also be found on the film Some Kind of Monster.
Critical reception
St. Anger received polarized reviews from critics; the album holds a score of 65 out of 100, based on 20 reviews, on review-aggregating website Metacritic. Talking about the album, Greg Kot of Blender said, "It may be too late to rehabilitate Metallica's image, but once again, their music is all about bringing the carnage."
Although some reviews of St. Anger were positive, other reviewers had a strong distaste for the album. Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork criticized Ulrich and Hammett, saying that Ulrich was "playing a drum set consisting of steel drums, aluminum toms, programmed double kicks, and a broken church bell. The kit's high-end clamor ignored the basic principles of drumming: timekeeping," he added, "Hetfield and Hammett's guitars underwent more processing than cat food. When they both speedstrummed through St. Anger, and most other movements, [Hetfield and Hammett] seemed to overwhelm each other with different, terrible noise. Also the duration of most songs made it boring to hear them." Playlouder reviewer William Luff cited the album's 75-minute length and sound ("a monolithic slab of noise") as reasoning that St. Anger was "just too dense and daunting to be truly enjoyable." PopMatters reporter Michael Christopher said "St. Anger dispenses with the recent spate of radio friendly pleasantries in favor of pedal to the floor thrash, staggered and extended song structures, quick changes and a muddled production that tries to harken back to the Kill 'Em All days. All attempts fail miserably."
The album's snare drum sound was widely criticized. In 2017, Hetfield said, "There are things I would like to change on some of the records, but it gives them so much character that you can’t change them ... St. Anger could use a little less tin snare drum, but those things are what make those records part of our history."
In 2014, Tom Hawking of Flavorwire included the album in his list of "The 50 Worst Albums Ever Made", in which he said: "When your most productive band member is the life coach you’re paying $10,000 a week, you’ve got problems."
Track listing
Personnel
Metallica
- James Hetfield – vocals, guitars
- Lars Ulrich – drums
- Kirk Hammett – guitars
- Robert Trujillo <small>(credited but does not perform)</small>
Additional musician
- Bob Rock – bass
Technicial personnel
- Bob Rock – production, engineering, mixing
- Metallica – production, album design
- Mike Gillies – engineering and mixing assistance, digital engineering
- Eric Helmkamp – engineering and mixing assistance
- Vlado Meller – mastering
- Pushead – cover illustration
- Anton Corbijn – photography
- Brad Klausen – production design
- Matt Mahurin – St. Anger illustration, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett images
- Forhelvede Productions – Lars Ulrich image
- Pascal Brun – Robert Trujillo image
- Comenius Röthlisberger – Robert Trujillo image
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+2003 weekly chart performance
!Chart (2003)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Metal Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
|align="center"| 1
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Greek Albums (IFPI)
|align="center"|1
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|align="center"|1
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Singaporean Albums (RIAS)
|align="center"| 2
|-
!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (AFYVE)
| style="text-align:center;"|2
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+2003 year-end chart performance
!Chart (2003)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"|Australian Albums (ARIA)
| style="text-align:center;"|32
|-
!scope="row"|Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)
| style="text-align:center;"|18
|-
!scope="row"|Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
| style="text-align:center;"|10
|-
!scope="row"|Belgian Alternative Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
| style="text-align:center;"|4
|-
!scope="row"|Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)
| style="text-align:center;"|46
|-
!scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)
| style="text-align:center;"|38
|-
!scope="row"|Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
| style="text-align:center;"|24
|-
! scope="row"|Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)
| style="text-align:center;"|1
|-
!scope="row"|French Albums (SNEP)
| style="text-align:center;"|129
|-
!scope="row"|German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| style="text-align:center;"|10
|-
!scope="row"|Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)
| style="text-align:center;"|31
|-
!scope="row"|Italian Albums (FIMI)
| style="text-align:center;"|38
|-
!scope="row"|New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
| style="text-align:center;"|39
|-
!scope="row"|Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)
| style="text-align:center;"|10
|-
!scope="row"|Swedish Albums & Compilations (Sverigetopplistan)
| style="text-align:center;"|14
|-
!scope="row"|Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)
| style="text-align:center;"|9
|-
!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)
| style="text-align:center;"|95
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
| style="text-align:center;"|38
|-
! scope="row"| Worldwide Albums (IFPI)
| style="text-align:center;"|18
|}