I remember the first time I listened to Metallica. It was in 1991, and the song was "The Four Horsemen". It's been a while since then, but I still listen to those albums. As some of you know, I love music, most genres except rap and hip hop, so heavy metal/thrash metal is not an exception. There are some moments when you want to relax with some classical or pop, and there are moments when you need something more powerful and energy filled, and does Metallica fill that niche. I never really got into Load and Reload, and those two plus the S&M album are the only records missing in my collection. When I heard they were working on a new album I had some mixed feelings. My opinion about St. Anger? It's damn good. Sure it's not like their old work, but it's good material, I like it. Some people find the distorted snare sound annoying, I love it.

I was curious about Some Kind of Monster, the documentary that supposedly sheds some light about Metallica's past and future, so I gave it a go. Hetfield going into rehab and the ego problems weren't that surprising, but that scene with Dave Mustaine surely was. I had always considered Dave to be a tough guy. Watching him break into tears was really something I wasn't expecting.I understand his feelings, but come on, it's not like Megadeth was a flop. I have 4 of their records and they rule in their own style. I recently listened to their The system has failed and it still has the same Megadeth sound, which I like. Yes, Back in the day has that Iron Maiden-esque sound, but the rest sounds like Countdown to Extinction. We could play the what if game all day long, but the fact is that Dave's departure from Metallica gave us some great albums from the successful Megadeth guys. I hope he'll get over it, it's been more than 20 years already, after all.

The other interesting topic is Lars. The guy made an ass of himself with the Napster thing a few years ago, but the part where he is selling his art collection and making several million dollars in the process finally convinced me that he has little, if any, resemblance of what he once was. The irony of this is in Garage, Inc's booklet, let me quote page 4 for a second:

"When Lars first came to the States, he had all these singles with devils and pentagrams and rough-looking guys with leather jackers on the covers: Motörhead, Diamond Head, Witchfynde, Sweet Savage, Tygers of Pang Tang. I would stay over at his place for days at a time, making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet."

Can you taste the irony? Lars seems to be more worried about his art collection and arguing with others than about making good music, that's the perception I have after watching him in the documentary. And maybe that was the reason why Jason Newsted left. Rob Trujillo looks pretty impressive, though, so perhaps the change was for the better after all.

I admire the guys for the work they've done over the years. In my opinion, Ride the Lightning is their best work and one of the greatest metal albums ever made. You know it's some good music when you can listen to it 20 years after it was recorded and still enjoy it like the first day.

On a final note I found it funny to see the use of Pro Tools (it was Pro Tools, right?) for the mastering and recording of St. Anger. I had this mental image of the group jamming and recording the stuff almost live. Definitely a documentary worth watching if you like the group.