Hello and welcome back to Metalween on “The Hitlist”, where I take on the metal songs I love to hate. Oh, and it’s also my second contribution for the 31 Days of Halloween. Hooray for twofers.
 
First off, a little bit of context is necessary. Originally, I was going to review “Bodies” by Drowning Pool. I even got my thumbnail artist, Kane Fletcher, to make a thumbnail for it.
However, after listening to it again, I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would. I mean, sure, it’s repetitive and it’s a victim of overplay–especially on YouTube–but other than that, I can’t really complain too much. So I had to scramble to find a new song to tackle. Enter Bennett the Sage. Some time ago, he made a list of bad songs from good artists. And one of those was, of course, “St. Anger” by Metallica. It was the first time I ever heard of it, so I took a listen. And if you want to know what I thought…well, I wouldn’t be making a blog about it if I liked it, now would I?
Let’s start with the painfully obvious–Lars Ulrich’s drumming. I don’t mind steel drums at all, but there’s a time and place for them. AÂ Metallica song is not one of those. Frankly, it sounds way off and it’s way too distracting. Also, it seems to throw off the rhythm, which is always a bad thing. As if it had rhythm to begin with. I think Sage said that it sounded like a bunch of leftovers from other Metallica songs Frankensteined together, if you will. Or was that Todd in the Shadows and the Black Eyed Peas? Either way, that seems to be the case. None of it really seems to blend well, from the Design the Skyline style noise at the beginning to the “way too mellow to be a Metallica verse” verse. It simply doesn’t work.
And if you thought hearing Let the bodies hit the floor a thousand times was irritating, at least that song had different verses and bridges. But this song?
St. Anger ’round my neck/St. Anger ’round my neck/He never gets respect/St. Anger ’round my neck
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Ok, I’m exaggerating. It does have something other than that at the chorus…
I’m madly in anger with you
…Er…
What in the name of dear sweet Celestia does that even mean??? Who is St. Anger? What is St. Anger? Why does he/it deserve respect? Is it a metaphor? I think the bridge mentions a noose…is that St. Anger? What is even this song???
If someone–anyone–can explain this song to me, I will film myself eating my Heroclix collection. But until then, I gotta agree with Sage. This song is a noisy, confusing, mess. How exactly did such a well-respected band like Metallica make a song like this? How did we get to this point? I honestly have no idea. But it just comes to show that even the mighty fall. And when they do fall, that fall hard. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna prepare for a Halloween party. I’m madly in confusion with this song.
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