10 Most Underappreciated Rock Albums

Your writer mentioned St. Anger in the intro. We will never stop mentioning St. Anger. We are baffled and fascinated by St. Anger. For a band to pull their career back from that abomination is no mean feat. Not just the record itself, but the experience of recording it (as seen in the film, Some Kind Of Monster), which was, suffice to say, a slog.

By 2008, Metallica had something to prove. They were still huge and could have easily rested on their laurels and played the hits for the rest of their lives. But they did not want to do that, and after nearly 20 years of trying new things - stadium rock, alternative rock, orchestras, nu-metal but with bin lids instead of drums - they finally went back to what brought them to the dance in the first place: eight-minute-long thrash metal epics, ten of them.

Superstar producer Rick Rubin pulled his usual trick of letting established acts get back to basics, and it worked a treat as Metallica sounded refreshed and ready for work. Critical grumblings about “loudness wars” and compression rates aren’t entirely unjustified but when the songs are this good, does it really matter?

Standout Tracks: That Was Just Your Life, The End Of The Line, The Day That Never Comes, All Nightmare Long, Cyanide