- Forum Clout
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I'll give it this: the live in studio version is way better because it's actually garage-y and a bit more unhinged, which is sort of the point. The concept of St. Anger should have been "we wrote an album but we wanted it as raw as possible". Or they could've done something unique like debuting the songs to say, 1000 fan club members live and then having THAT recording be the album itself. I heard of one band whose debut album was a live album, so stuff like this has been done before.
I wanna defend this album, because I broke it down one time and there were only 3 of 11 songs that actually flat out stink. The problem is, those 3 songs equate to like 21 minutes. But if you cut them out, you're left with a decent album. Even with the weird aesthetics, I prefer this over Death Magnetic easily. That album's so redundant and forgettable.
The problem with that, sweetie, is that the album is basically Metallica does Nu metal and at this point they're continuing their trend of adopting the "popular" sound rather than pioneering it. If this were some nobody garage band, you'd say it was a pretty good effort to a promising band that needs refinement.
I will say that I find St Anger more interesting than their later albums, but that's because Metallica is so bad since AJFA. Load and Reload are both garbage and you're right about Death Magnetic, but I'd extend that to their last two also.