Metallica: Ranking Every Album’s Last Song

10. All Within My Hands - St. Anger

Metallica's much maligned eighth album St. Anger is a radical departure from their usual sound. For a start, it has no guitar solos, which is a bit like being a zoo with no animals in it. It also heavily features a steel snare drum and was recorded deliberately roughly to give it a rawer, more intimate sound.

Sometimes this actually works, but other times it's really really annoying. Exhibit A - the album's final track, "All Within My Hands".

Whilst the steel snare was a neat touch at the start of the record, by the time you've sat through over an hour of it, it starts to grate. It makes an ungodly din throughout the song, being smashed into oblivion by Lars Ulrich as if he were playing some demented version of Whack-A-Mole.

James Hetfield's frantic singing is meant to reflect his tortured mental state, but comes across more like a drunken uncle attempting to sing screamo at karaoke. Oh, and the thing is nearly nine minutes long.

Whilst it might have been fine if it was a bit shorter and lodged somewhere in the middle of the album, "All Within My Hands" is a failure of a closer.