St. Anger (Limited Edition Orange Vinyl LP)

Metallica's nineth album, St. Anger (2003), pressed on 140g 'Some Kind Of Orange' limited edition coloured vinyl

Never underestimate the regenerative powers of Metallica. Following the stripped-down Load and Reload, they've returned to the raw, vitriolic savagery of their earlier canon, using 1984's Ride the Lightning as a template for St. Anger. The title track provides the psychic lynchpin of the album by combining the bombast and defiance of the band's earliest high-water marks with more deliberate lyrics and emotional nakedness. Equally cathartic is 'Some Kind of Monster,' a lumbering beast of a song that declares, "This is the voice of silence no more." Despite that claim, there's an economy to these lyrics; James Hetfield's raw-toothed growl only occasionally punctuates the menacing soundscapes. In fact, 'Dirty Windows,' the standout track here, is a shimmering five-minute instrumental that's free of the baroque trappings that sometimes clutter the Metallica landscape.