Retro Revelations 3 years ago
There are some very good songs on St. Anger, most specifically Frantic, The Unnamed Feeling, and Sweet Amber. All Within My Hands also would have been a great song, IF they had recorded the acoustic arrangement they did live at one of their charity shows. THAT version of the song is amazing. All in all, it was a letdown of an album, but for me, as a Metallica fan, it oddly came along at the "right time" in my life, as well. Something in James' lyrical themes of the time seemed to fit where I was in my own life. Regardless, even fans of the album would be hard-pressed to argue against the fact that it should have been better.
Also, I'd like to point out that, at least in my own fan estimation, the rhetoric that Metallica got "bad" in the 90s, is both false and unwarranted. Yes, they did shed their 80s thrash sound. But the thing is, they DID the thrash thing, four epic, bad ass albums' worth. They arguably did thrash better than anyone else on the planet, they wrote the "book" on thrash metal. So, one could easily argue (as I'm sure they themselves would and did), that as artists they did not want to repeat themselves, and wanted to venture into other territory. The "Black Album" is one of the best metal albums ever recorded, period. My personal favorite is "...And Justice For All", but Black is right up there. It's still incredibly heavy, and one thing about 90s Metallica, is that James ventures into some very dark, more intense and sometimes personal lyrical content. Some of his best lyrics are from the 90s albums, and songs like "The Unforgiven", "Sad But True" and "Nothing Else Matters" exemplify that.
As for the infamous Load and Reload? Yeah, people claimed they "sold out", they cried because the band cut their hair, and once against shifted styles. But the thing is.....those are STILL heavy metal albums, and what's more, they STILL feature some really incredible music. The thing many thrash purists ignore, is that those albums really hearken back to the kind of music that Metallica themselves grew up listening to, 70s arena rock, southern rock, prog rock, and heavy metal bands. There is a LOT of that in there, as well as Kirk's growing blues influences (he was learning from Satriania for a bi there). They aren't Thrash, no, and they DO have dumb names/covers, granted. But Load and Reload still have a LOT of really great music on them.
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