Metallica's St. Anger. Jumping right into things, it deserves the same rating as Korn's Untouchables. Here's why:

1. A promise to former glories: Korn always directly promised fans they'd go back to the sound of their first album. Metallica hinted that this one would be "heavier" than past album and more "thrashy" than anything they'd done in awhile. Did Metallica pull through? In one way, yes. The songs are definitely faster and longer than most of the songs found on any studio albums (aside from Garage Days) since Metallica.
2. A severe lack of highlights. While the album doesn't flow like a concept album, there is a common sound and theme to everything here, and that's loud and angry. And while no two songs really sound alike, it all blends into a sonic backdrop of gloom and desperation.

And these are the main points as to why this album gets the same score as Korn's Untouchables and why they can be compared. Not only that, but since St. Anger's release, a few have compared "Some Kind of Monster" to a standard Korn song. The similarity is not difficult to see: both are gloomy, detuned songs, and Lars Ulrich's drumming has a similar feel to Dave Silvera's style. The quality of the individual songs, to the album's credit, do improve toward the end, with "Shoot Me Again," "Purify" and "All Within My Hands" being definite highlights.

Is that a positive or a negative? Your judgment on that one, but what is a negative is the production. Much criticism has been directed toward the drums sounding thin during the whole album. Maybe it's just these ears, but the entirety of the arrangements seem murky and some details (mainly the guitars) nearly undistinguishable from others. Metallica definitely has two guitarists, and always has, but either both are playing the same thing this time around or someone is thoroughly under-mixed. The versions found on the bonus DVD (whose "limited edition" or "permanent packaging deal" status is unknown to this writer) sound much better than what is presented on the album.

Speaking of guitars, there are no solos on this album. The entire thing. Not a guitar, bass or drum solo in sight for miles in the 75:06 of this album. Maybe, after the departure of bassist Jason Newstead and the rumors of turmoil within after their Playboy interview, this was done as a sign of unity. In any case… bad decision. This would not be a problem if the album hadn't boasted "Over 75 minutes of music!" on the sticker on the wrapping. In what is in some ways a ripoff, most of the album feels like the band played the song twice over (or in the case of the title track, devised a series of choruses and pre-choruses) so the tracks would be arguably overlong. Most of the songs are timed past the 6:00 minute mark, most of which is chorus.

But what are the positives? Energy. The album is a sheer adrenaline rush from beginning to (oh, so far away) end. There is a fury throughout this album that Metallica did not use for a full album length since the Kill 'Em All/Ride the Lightning era. It's a refreshing breath of dirty, loud air after useless tripe like "I Disappear."

Also, production issues aside, the riffs are fairly well-written, and despite the sludgy sound, can stick out, sucha s on "Invisible Kid" and "My World." The intros to "My World" and "Dirty Window," especially show that Metallica can still play guitar; they, for whatever reason, just chose not to on this album.

In the end, St. Anger is a mediocre album from a band that seems to be trying to show the current generation of mainstream metal and nu-metal lovers how, in the past, they influenced current acts like Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park or Korn. However, all they are really doing is imitating their sounds and barely making it their own. The true scope of Metallica's musicianship is hidden behind some angst for the kids and 20 minutes for the hardcore fans who want 7-minute epics from these metal gods. Metallica will definitely recover from this slight misstep (which is more like a pothole than the "burning chasm of suck" some have described it to be). Between then and now, though, who knows? Maybe this will grow onto everyone who gave it mixed/negative reviews like Load seems to have done.