10 Perfect Rock Singles On Bad Albums
2. St. Anger - Metallica: St. Anger (2003)
The documentary, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, might have tried to paint this album as some kind of triumphant return to glory for the former lords of thrash metal, but really, it was anything but.
St. Anger was an album filled with tired and over used concepts, played for the most part, with an exhausted enthusiasm. The documentary only served to enforce this notion. As we watched the band bitching at each other in group therapy sensations, they slowly became the real life Spinal Tap.
James Hetfield can be forgiven for some of his behaviour; he was after all struggling with the old booze demon. But, Lars Ulrich just came across like a bratty teenager. And poor Kirk Hammett took on the demeanour of kid tired of his squabbling parents. On top of that the band were lacking a bass player for the recording sessions. Alas it wasn't a story of redemption, rather it showed the band as a bunch of spoilt celebs.
But they did pull themselves together long enough to write a killer lead single. St. Anger's lyrics captured the pent up aggression within the band. And, by flitting between a melodic verse and a thrash driven chorus, they demonstrated there was still a little something left in the Metallica tank.