As a matter of fact, I really like the album. In my opinion, the album is pretty good. Not as excellent as “Death Magnetic” or their old stuff, but “St. Anger” had good songs on it. “St. Anger” showed a different side of Metallica.

Their goal as a band was, they wanted to have a different style of music every album they do. There are no guitar solos on the album “St. Anger”, but hey, that’s fine with me. They are a band. The band is not afraid to do what they want to do.

The reason there are no guitar solos on “St. Anger” was that Kirk Hammett was tired of being a “lead guitar” player, he hated being looked at as a soloist in the band when he also wanted to be looked at as a rhythym player and songwriter of the band too. In the movie “Some Kind of Monster”… Kirk Hammett, said so himself during the recording of “St. Anger” that he was bored of playing too many guitar solos for songs. He wanted to write more riffs and write lyrics of his own toward the album.

Fans shouldn’t blame Metallica for keep changing their sound every album. All bands and musicians get tired of staying in the same style and genre. The same with Metallica. Look at songwriters like Beck and Neil Young who constantly changes genres every album.

Will Metallica stay to their old speed metal roots with “Death Magnetic” when they start recording their next album? I wouldn’t count on it. This classic speed metal style for “Death Magnetic” could be a one off. Never know that Metallica can change a genre and style again for their next album after “Death Magnetic”. And who knows how long Rob Trujillo will stay with the band. Trujillo could possibly last with Metallica for like two or three albums.

I really like the album “St. Anger”, always did. I never said it was bad, I was just going by the fan reactions.

Metallica are musicians and songwriters, just like everyone else. Musicians and songwriters go into different directions all the time. Even I do with my own music. You shouldn’t hate a band or a artist just because they don’t stay to their true original sound. They want to discover new things.

I am sick of music fans complaining about Metallica for going to a different direction, and I agree with James and Lars, that them being heavy and doing speed metal every single album would be boring. If Cliff Burton was still alive today and if he was still in Metallica, do you honestly think Cliff would want to be playing fast headbanging metal all the time? No. I don’t think so. Cliff would want to go through different directions in Metallica too.

The future of Metallica is not always going to be the same. I’ve seen the “Some Kind of Monster” movie last night and it was great. I will talk more about that some other time.

Kev