Old Metallica ftw. Haven't really dug anything since The Black Album. I'm glad I saw them live in mid-'93 before they went all Load-y, because both those albums blew arse.
St Anger showed some promise though. The sound was raw and the songs were back to kick-arse thrash territory but the whole thing was just shoddy & underdone, especially production-wise. All the songs were pretty much way too long & the production values really needed to be up a step from where they were. Vocals really should have been done properly instead of that single-take half-arsed bullshit, songs needed to be trimmed down and - for god's sake - that snare drum sound was like a kid beating on a tin bucket. Did my head in. I'm all for a record with a bitey, raw sound (thinks back to GNR's Appetite For Destruction or, more recently, any album by The Black Keys) but come on, a zillion-dollar band ought to know how to pull that sound off and still sound like professionals. Somehow Metallica have never been able to consistently attract a decent engineer/producer. Everything before the awesomely-produced "Black" sounded like it was done in some dude's basement and, unfortunately, the production on the Load albums couldn't do enough to polish the turds that the guys recorded.
Love their new bass player though. Trujillo's a freakin machine!
I've heard electric drums without the electric parts sound better that whatever Lars was using there.