St. Anger
Encyclopedia
St. Anger is the eighth studio album by the American heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

. It was released on June 5, 2003 through Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....

. It was the band's last album released through Elektra. The album marked the end of the longest timespan between studio albums from Metallica, with nearly six years between the release of ReLoad
ReLoad
ReLoad is the seventh studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on November 18, 1997 through Elektra Records. The album is a sequel or counterpart to the band's previous album, Load. It debuted number 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 417,000 copies in its first week....

 and St. Anger. The album was originally intended for release on June 10, 2003, but was released five days earlier due to concerns over unlicensed distribution through peer-to-peer file sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing
P2P or Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to download files such as music, movies, and games using a P2P software client that searches for other connected computers. The "peers" are computer systems connected to each other through internet. Thus, the only requirements for a computer to join...

 networks. St. Anger marks the final collaboration between Metallica and producer Bob Rock
Bob Rock
Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

, whose relationship began with the band's fifth studio album, 1991's Metallica
Metallica (album)
Metallica is the self-titled fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. Mainly produced by Bob Rock, it was released on August 12, 1991 through Elektra Records to critical acclaim...

.

St. Anger is the first Metallica album since Master of Puppets
Master of Puppets
-Personnel:Metallica* James Hetfield – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar on track 1, first solo on tracks 2 and 7* Cliff Burton – bass, backing vocals* Lars Ulrich – drums* Kirk Hammett – lead guitarProduction...

 that does not feature long-time bassist Jason Newsted
Jason Newsted
Jason Curtis Newsted is an American bassist known for his work with Metallica, Voivod and Flotsam and Jetsam. Joining Metallica in 1986 after Cliff Burton's death, Newsted remained a member until 2001, making him the band's longest-serving bassist...

. Newsted left the band prior to the initial sessions for the album, leaving Bob Rock to temporarily take his place until a permanent replacement could be found. It is also the first album since ...And Justice for All
...And Justice for All (album)
...And Justice for All is the fourth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on August 25, 1988 through Elektra Records. It is the first full-length Metallica album to feature bassist Jason Newsted following the death of Cliff Burton in 1986...

 to have a title track. Recording of the album initially started on April 24, 2001, but was postponed indefinitely when rhythm guitarist and singer James Hetfield
James Hetfield
James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...

 entered rehab for "alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 and other addictions". St. Anger is often recognized for being a radical musical departure from Metallica's earlier work; it features a more modern heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 style, raw production, and no guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

s. It is also the first and only album by Metallica to be recorded as a three piece band instead of four.

St. Anger debuted at the top of sales charts in 30 countries, including the United States Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

. Upon the release of the album, St. Anger met mixed critical reviews and has since gained less favorable reception. In 2004, the lead single from the album, "St. Anger
St. Anger (song)
"St. Anger" was the lead single from Metallica's eighth studio album with the same name. It won Best Metal Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards and was also nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park.This song provided the theme...

", won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for "Best Metal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards to recording artists for works containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre...

". The album was certified 2x platinum by the RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

.

Background, writing and recording

Metallica rented an old army barracks on the Presidio
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...

 of San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 and converted it into a makeshift studio in January 2001. As plans were being made to enter the studio to write and record its first album in nearly five years, Metallica postponed the recording due to the departure of Jason Newsted
Jason Newsted
Jason Curtis Newsted is an American bassist known for his work with Metallica, Voivod and Flotsam and Jetsam. Joining Metallica in 1986 after Cliff Burton's death, Newsted remained a member until 2001, making him the band's longest-serving bassist...

. Newsted left Metallica on January 17, 2001, stating his departure was due to "private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love". Uncomfortable with immediately writing and recording with a new bassist, Metallica opted to include its long-time producer Bob Rock
Bob Rock
Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

 as bassist. Metallica stated they would find another bass player upon the album's completion.

In July 2001, recording came to a halt when vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield
James Hetfield
James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...

 entered rehab for alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 and other undisclosed addictions. Hetfield returned to the band in April of the next year, but was only allowed to work on the album from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Due to Hetfield's personal dilemmas, as well as Metallica's internal struggles, the band hired a personal enhancement coach, Phil Towle
Phil Towle
Phil Towle is a self-titled "Performance Enhancement Coach" most notable for his work with the heavy metal band Metallica, lead singer/guitarist James Hetfield, as shown in the documentary Some Kind of Monster. In it, he is shown working with the band through the process of the loss of longtime...

, to help them. This and the recording of the album was documented by filmmakers Joe Berlinger
Joe Berlinger
Joseph "Joe" Berlinger is an American documentary film-maker who, in collaboration with Bruce Sinofsky, has created such films as Paradise Lost about the West Memphis 3, Brother's Keeper, Some Kind of Monster, and Crude....

 and Bruce Sinofsky
Bruce Sinofsky
Bruce Sinofsky is an award-winning documentary film director, who began his career at Maysles Films.Sinofsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts. As Senior Editor for Maysles, he worked on commercials and feature films until 1991, when he and Joe Berlinger formed their own production company,...

. Throughout two years of filming, over 1,000 hours of video were recorded, documenting the band's recording process. Subsequent to the album's release, Berlinger and Sinofsky released the edited material as the film Some Kind of Monster
Some Kind of Monster (film)
Some Kind of Monster is a 2004 documentary film featuring the American heavy metal band Metallica. It shares its name with the song "Some Kind of Monster" from Metallica's 2003 album St. Anger....

.

Hetfield stated that the album was written with "a lot of passion in this". He said, "There's two years of condensed emotion in this. We've gone through a lot of personal changes, struggles, epiphanies, it's deep. It's so deep lyrically and musically. [St. Anger] is just the best that it can be from us right now." The band purposely wanted a raw sound on the album; therefore Rock did not polish the sound while mixing. The band desired the raw sound because of the depth of the emotion they felt and did not want to "mess with it". Rock commented, "I wanted to do something to shake up radio and the way everything else sounds. To me, this album sounds like four guys in a garage getting together and writing rock songs. There was really no time to get amazing performances out of James. We liked the raw performances. And we didn't do what everyone does and what I've been guilty of for a long time, which is tuning vocals. We just did it, boom, and that was it."

Guitarist Kirk Hammett
Kirk Hammett
Kirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...

 commented on the lack of guitar solos on St. Anger, a departure from what Metallica has done in the past: "We wanted to preserve the sound of all four of us in a room just jamming. We tried to put guitar solos on, but we kept on running into this problem. It really sounded like an afterthought." Hammett said that he was happy with the final product. Rock stated, "We made a promise to ourselves that we'd only keep stuff that had integrity. We didn't want to make a theatrical statement by adding overdubs."

Drummer Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American thrash metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather...

 achieved a unique sound on St. Anger by turning off the snares on his snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

 resulting in a drum tone with far more "ring" than is usual in rock and metal. This sound received much backlash from fans and critics alike. Ulrich said, "One day I forgot to turn the snare on because I wasn't thinking about this stuff. At the playbacks, I decided I was really liking what I was hearing — it had a different ambience. It sang back to me a in a beautiful way." Regarding the backlash about the sound, he stated, "It's crazy, that kind of closed-mindedness." Rock said, "I would say I've only [done something] this brutal [sounding] when I've done demos. It probably sounds heavier because it's Metallica, but really this was a 15-minutes-on-the-drum-sound type of thing."

When St. Anger was completed, Metallica kept true to its earlier statement and hired a new permanent bassist. In February 2003, Robert Trujillo
Robert Trujillo
Robert Trujillo is an American bassist who currently plays bass in Metallica. He has also played in Suicidal Tendencies, Infectious Grooves, Black Label Society, and with Jerry Cantrell and Ozzy Osbourne.-Career:...

 joined Metallica. Trujillo appeared on the footage of studio rehearsals of St. Anger in its entirety, which was included on DVD in the album package.

Album artwork

Brian "Pushead
Pushead
Pushead is an artist, record label owner, and writer within the hardcore punk and heavy metal field. He has created artwork for many bands, artists, and athletes including Metallica, the The Misfits, Dr. Dre, Travis Barker, and Craig Johnson. He has designed many record covers, T-shirts,...

" Schroeder designed the album cover and interior artwork for St. Anger. Pushead has designed a number of items for Metallica in the past, including liner artwork of ...And Justice for All
...And Justice for All (album)
...And Justice for All is the fourth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on August 25, 1988 through Elektra Records. It is the first full-length Metallica album to feature bassist Jason Newsted following the death of Cliff Burton in 1986...

, several single covers, and many T-shirts; however, St. Anger marks his first studio album cover art for the band. Originally, according to Metallica's official website, four different limited color variations of the cover were planned, but the idea was eventually scrapped.

Release and promotion

St. Anger was released on June 5, 2003. It was originally scheduled for June 10, 2003, but due to Metallica's previous battle with Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

 and fear that it would be illegally released onto peer-to-peer file sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing
P2P or Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to download files such as music, movies, and games using a P2P software client that searches for other connected computers. The "peers" are computer systems connected to each other through internet. Thus, the only requirements for a computer to join...

 networks, the band pushed the release date five days ahead. A special edition of the album was released with a bonus DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

, featuring live, in-the-studio rehearsals of all of the St. Anger tracks. First week sales of the album were 417,000 copies, and it debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

, as well as 30 other countries in the world. In 2004, Metallica won the award for Best Metal Performance, for the song "St. Anger
St. Anger (song)
"St. Anger" was the lead single from Metallica's eighth studio album with the same name. It won Best Metal Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards and was also nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park.This song provided the theme...

".

After St. Angers release, Metallica embarked on a tour that would last nearly two years. The first leg was the U.S. 2003 Summer Sanitarium tour with support from Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...

, Deftones
Deftones
Deftones are an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California, founded in 1988. The band consists of Chino Moreno , Stephen Carpenter , Chi Cheng , Frank Delgado , and Abe Cunningham . Currently Sergio Vega is standing in on bass while Cheng recovers from a car accident...

, Linkin Park
Linkin Park
Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries...

, and Mudvayne
Mudvayne
Mudvayne is an American heavy metal band. Their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate visual appearance, which has included face and body paint, masks and uniforms...

. After Summer Sanitarium, the band began the Madly in Anger with the World Tour
Madly in Anger with the World Tour
The Madly in Anger with the World Tour was a year-long concert tour by Metallica that took place in 2003 and 2004, in connection with their St. Anger album....

 with support from Godsmack
Godsmack
Godsmack is an American heavy metal band from Lawrence, Massachusetts, formed in 1995. The band is composed of founder, frontman and songwriter Sully Erna, guitarist Tony Rombola, bassist Robbie Merrill, and drummer Shannon Larkin...

 (and Slipknot
Slipknot (band)
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. Formed in 1995, the group was founded by percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray...

 on certain European dates), which lasted until late 2004. The St. Anger songs "Frantic
Frantic (song)
"Frantic" is the opening track and second single by heavy metal band Metallica off their 2003 album St. Anger. This song, like many others on St. Anger, is about the band's past struggles with addictions, particularly lead singer James Hetfield's alcohol problem, for which he spent many months in...

", "St. Anger", "Dirty Window", and "The Unnamed Feeling
The Unnamed Feeling
"The Unnamed Feeling" is the third single by heavy metal band Metallica from their 2003 album St. Anger. The song is about an unnamed feeling a person feels when they are close to the edge of losing control, just before he or she panics.Along with a music video, the song was released as a single...

" were performed frequently during the tour. "Sweet Amber" and "Some Kind of Monster
Some Kind of Monster (song)
"Some Kind of Monster" is a song by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released in June 2004 through Elektra Records. The song is featured on their eighth album, St. Anger. It was also released on an EP of the same title, which may be considered as the fourth and final single from the...

" were also played live, but not as often as other songs on St. Anger. The album tracks were altered when played live; sometimes they were shortened, or in some cases a guitar solo was added. Sometimes, only one song from the album was played live. By 2009, the songs from St. Anger were completely absent from Metallica's set lists. The last time any song was performed from St. Anger was "Frantic
Frantic (song)
"Frantic" is the opening track and second single by heavy metal band Metallica off their 2003 album St. Anger. This song, like many others on St. Anger, is about the band's past struggles with addictions, particularly lead singer James Hetfield's alcohol problem, for which he spent many months in...

" on October 21st 2008 in Glendale, Arizona
Glendale, Arizona
Glendale is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, located about nine miles northwest from Downtown Phoenix. According to 2010 Census Bureau, the population of the city is 226,721....

. In October 2007, the song "All Within My Hands" was performed live for the first time, acoustically
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

, at both nights of the Bridge School Benefit
Bridge School Benefit
The Bridge School Benefit is an annual non-profit charity concert held in Mountain View, California, every October at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. The concerts are all organized by musician Neil Young and his wife, Pegi....

 concerts.

Metallica also released four singles from St. Anger. The order of the releases was "St. Anger
St. Anger (song)
"St. Anger" was the lead single from Metallica's eighth studio album with the same name. It won Best Metal Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards and was also nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park.This song provided the theme...

", "Frantic
Frantic (song)
"Frantic" is the opening track and second single by heavy metal band Metallica off their 2003 album St. Anger. This song, like many others on St. Anger, is about the band's past struggles with addictions, particularly lead singer James Hetfield's alcohol problem, for which he spent many months in...

", "The Unnamed Feeling
The Unnamed Feeling
"The Unnamed Feeling" is the third single by heavy metal band Metallica from their 2003 album St. Anger. The song is about an unnamed feeling a person feels when they are close to the edge of losing control, just before he or she panics.Along with a music video, the song was released as a single...

", and "Some Kind of Monster
Some Kind of Monster (song)
"Some Kind of Monster" is a song by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released in June 2004 through Elektra Records. The song is featured on their eighth album, St. Anger. It was also released on an EP of the same title, which may be considered as the fourth and final single from the...

". On the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart, these singles charted at #2, #21, #28, and #18, respectively. Promotional music videos were also made of all four of the songs. These videos can be found on Metallica's DVD video collection, titled The Videos 1989-2004
The Videos 1989-2004
The Videos 1989–2004 is a video album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on December 4, 2006 worldwide, and on December 5 in North America. It features all of the band's videos from 1989 to 2004. The DVD sold 28,000 copies in its first week of release. The disc has been...

, and the video for "Some Kind of Monster" can also be found on the film Some Kind of Monster.

Critical reception

St. Anger received a mixed response from critics; review-aggregating website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

 gave the album a score of 65 out of 100, based on 20 reviews. One reviewer, Adrien Begrand of PopMatters, took both sides to it, saying, "While it's an ungodly mess at times, what you hear on this album is a band playing with passion for the first time in years." Producer Bob Rock said that it was intended to sound like "a band jamming together in a garage for the first time, and the band just happened to be Metallica". Talking about the album, Greg Kot from Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....

 said, "It may be too late to rehabilitate Metallica’s image, but once again, their music is all about bringing the carnage." Writing for NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

, Ian Watson said, "the songs are a stripped back, heroically brutal reflection of this fury. You get the sense that, as with their emotional selves, they've taken metal apart and started again from scratch. There's no space wasted here, no time for petty guitar solos or downtuned bass trickery, just a focussed, relentless attack." Johnny Loftus of Allmusic praised the album and described St. Anger as a "punishing, unflinching document of internal struggle — taking listeners inside the bruised yet vital body of Metallica, but ultimately revealing the alternately torturous and defiant demons that wrestle inside Hetfield's brain. St. Anger is an immediate record." Barry Walter from Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

 magazine also had a positive reaction to the direction taken in "St. Anger", stating "No wonder there's an authenticity to St. Anger's fury that none of the band's rap-metal followers can touch." He also went further to note the lack of commercial influence and modern rock aspects of previous albums continuing; "There's no radio-size, four-minute rock here, no pop-friendly choruses, no ballads, no solos, no wayward experimentation."

Although many reviews were positive toward St. Anger, some reviewers had a strong distaste for the album. Brent DiCrescenzo from Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

 strongly disliked the album and criticized Ulrich and Hammett, saying that Ulrich was "playing a drumset consisting of steel drums, aluminum toms, programmed double kicks, and a broken church bell. The kit's high-end clamor ignored the basic principles of drumming: timekeeping," he added, "Hetfield and Hammett's guitars underwent more processing than cat food. When they both speedstrummed through 'St. Anger', and most other movements, [Hetfield and Hammett] seemed to overwhelm each other with different, terrible noise." PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...

 reporter Michael Christopher said "St. Anger dispenses with the recent spate of radio friendly pleasantries in favor of pedal to the floor thrash, staggered and extended song structures, quick changes and a muddled production that tries to harken back to the Kill 'Em All
Kill 'Em All
Kill 'Em All is the debut studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on July 25, 1983. Since its release, it has been certified 3x platinum by the RIAA, having sold over 3 million copies in the United States alone.-Music:...

 days."

Track listing

Personnel

Metallica
  • James Hetfield
    James Hetfield
    James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...

     – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
    Rhythm guitar
    Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

  • Kirk Hammett
    Kirk Hammett
    Kirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...

     – lead guitar
    Lead guitar
    Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

    , backing vocals
    Backing vocalist
    A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...

  • Lars Ulrich
    Lars Ulrich
    Lars Ulrich is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American thrash metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather...

     – drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

    , percussion
  • Robert Trujillo
    Robert Trujillo
    Robert Trujillo is an American bassist who currently plays bass in Metallica. He has also played in Suicidal Tendencies, Infectious Grooves, Black Label Society, and with Jerry Cantrell and Ozzy Osbourne.-Career:...

     – bass
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

     (credited as band member and performs on included "St. Anger Rehearsals" DVD, but does not perform on album)


Additional musicians
  • Bob Rock
    Bob Rock
    Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

     – bass
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....



Production
  • Produced
    Record producer
    A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

     by Bob Rock and Metallica
  • Engineered
    Audio engineering
    An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...

     and mixed
    Audio mixing (recorded music)
    In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...

     by Bob Rock, assisted by Mike Gillies and Eric Helmkamp
  • Digital engineering by Mike Gillies
  • Mastered
    Audio mastering
    Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...

     by Vlado Meller
  • Album design by Metallica
  • Cover illustrations
    Album cover
    An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...

     by Pushead
    Pushead
    Pushead is an artist, record label owner, and writer within the hardcore punk and heavy metal field. He has created artwork for many bands, artists, and athletes including Metallica, the The Misfits, Dr. Dre, Travis Barker, and Craig Johnson. He has designed many record covers, T-shirts,...

  • Photography
    Photography
    Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

     by Anton Corbijn
    Anton Corbijn
    Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, music video and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both for more than a decade...

  • Production design by Brad Klausen
  • St. Anger illustration, James image, and Kirk image by Matt Mahurin
    Matt Mahurin
    Matt Mahurin is an American illustrator, photographer and film director. Mahurin's illustrations appear in Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Forbes, and The New York Times.Mahurin's work as a photo essayist has dealt with subjects such as homelessness, people with AIDS, the...

  • Lars image by Forhelvede Productions
  • Robert image by Pascal Brun and Comenius Röthlisberger
  • Management
    Talent manager
    A talent manager, also known as an artist manager or band manager, is an individual or company who guides the professional career of artists in the entertainment industry...

     by Q Prime Inc.

St. Anger Rehearsals DVD

  • Directed
    Music video director
    A music video director is driven by a given music track. These are called music videos and are then used as promotional tools for popular music singles...

     by Wayne Isham
    Wayne Isham
    Wayne Isham is an American music video director who has directed music videos of many popular artists; such as Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Roxette, Mötley Crüe, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Whitesnake, David Cook, Simple Plan, Avenged Sevenfold, Pantera, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys,...

  • Produced
    Film producer
    A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

     by Dana Marshall
  • Edited
    Film editing
    Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

     by Greg Rodgers and Gary Rodgers
  • Cinematography
    Cinematographer
    A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

     by Alex Poppas
  • Cameras
    Film crew
    Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew positions.A film crew is a group of people hired by a production company for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the Actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for...

     by Jean Pellerin, Mike Hatchet, Dave Hatchet, Colin Mitchell, Ryan Smith, and Nick Pectol
  • Gaffer
    Gaffer (filmmaking)
    A gaffer in the motion picture industry and on a television crew is an electrician that can be head of the electrical department, responsible for the execution of the lighting plan for a production. Gaffer, outside of the motion picture industry, is a traditional British English word for an older...

     - Logan Lebo
  • Monitors
    Foldback (sound engineering)
    Foldback is the use of rear-facing heavy-duty loudspeakers known as monitor speaker cabinets on stage during live music performances. The sound is amplified with power amplifiers or a public address system and the speakers are aimed at the on-stage performers rather than the audience...

     by Paul Owen
  • Production manager - Scott Cunningham
  • Script supervisor
    Script supervisor
    A script supervisor is a member of a film crew responsible for maintaining the motion picture's internal continuity and for recording the production unit's daily progress in shooting the film's screenplay...

     - Connie Isham
  • Additional editing by Jean Pellerin and Tracy Loth, assisted by Jason Bridges

Chart positions

Chart (2003) Peak
position
Australian Albums Chart
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

1
Austria Albums Chart
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

1
Canadian Albums Chart
Canadian Albums Chart
The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...

1
Finnish Albums Chart
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

1
German Albums Chart
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

1
Japan Albums Chart
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

1
Netherlands Albums Chart
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

2
Norwegian Albums Chart
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

1
Poland Albums Chart
OLiS
OLiS is the official list of the highest selling music albums in Poland. The list exists since October 23, 2000 and is provided by ZPAV....

1
Swedish Albums Chart
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

1
Swiss Albums Chart
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

2
UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

3
France Albums Chart
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

6
US Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

1

Certifications

Country Certification
United States 2x Platinum
Canada 2x Platinum
Finland Platinum
Germany 2x Platinum
Japan Gold
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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