[youtube]http://youtu.be/zCiNPgoGa6M[/youtube]
Until Lulu was released, Metallica’s 2003 album St. Anger was the band’s most polarizing album. OK, let’s be honest and call it Metallica’s most-hated album until Lulu. Aside from the album being 75 minutes long and not containing a single guitar solo, there was a lot of criticism about the overall sound of the record. Bob Rock, who’d produced all of the band’s albums since the Black Album 12 years earlier, wanted the band to sound like they were rehearsing in a garage. Whether it’s because he was trying to get the band to recapture the passion they originally had or because then-popular bands The Strokes and the White Stripes were leading a garage rock revival in 2003, one of the biggest complaints was the sonic quality of the album. Now there’s a project that’s attempting to take it back.
St. Anger 2015 is a project recorded by a trio of musicians. Daryl Gardner and Chris Dando of the band Grace the Skies and Dave Cox of Adust loved the album enough to re-record the whole thing with better production. Daryl recorded all the instruments, Dave sang, and Chris produced the thing, arguably better than Bob Rock. They even shortened the album by 16 minutes without it being that noticable, which takes care of another complaint about the album. It’s almost enough to make us fully appreciate the original. Here’s the project’s description:
#STANGER2015 debuts online January 12th 2015.
Re-recorded in it’s entirety, #stanger2015 is a project from Daryl G. and Chris D. (from Grace The Skies) and Dave C. (of Adust), and is a brand new version of Metallica’s 2003 album St. Anger.
Recorded during a turbulent time in the bands career, St. Anger has always divided opinion. Some longtime fans were turned off by the drop tuned riffs and raw production, whilst some listeners embraced it, myself included.
#STANGER2015 is for the listeners who weren’t so fond on the record back when it was released in 2003.
Recorded from the ground up, the album has been shortened by 16 minutes, yet every riff and lyric is intact, resulting in a more concise and focused record.
The production is also more conventional, and we hope that Metallica fans appreciate this new version of an album that is always looked at as an anomaly in the incredible career of the world’s biggest metal band, Metallica.
*Absolutely no money has been made from this project, and it has been created out of love for one of our favourite bands of all time. There will be no download links or alternative streaming options aside from the singular Youtube video which will air on the 12th January. All of the songs are copyright of Metallica, Q-Prime Management and Blackened Recordings
I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed revisiting the album.
The video has already logged nearly 175,000 views since being put up on Monday (12), which is far more visibility for the trio’s original bands than either has had. It’ll be interesting to see if Metallica chooses to respond to this version, as you’d have to imagine that the band was granted permission to do this.
