Hair-Losing Head Bangers

Met

allica has survived every heavy-metal cliche known to man. The original bassist, Cliff Burton, died in a horrendous 1986 tour-bus accident. In 1991, seven years after This Is Spinal Tap, the band put out its own black album. A year later, lead singer James Hetfield was nearly immolated onstage by some bad pyro. Metallica has even committed the ultimate sin of heavy-metal piety: the classical album, with the sheepish help of some cellists in the San Francisco Symphony.

So how is it that on its 11th record, St. Anger, Metallica is in position to do something original? Largely because it has not only survived all the cliches; it has survived, period. Metallica is the first credible heavy-metal band to reach something approaching middle age, and after years of alcoholism, Hetfield, 39, says he's not only sober but also serious about making an album that deals with his new adult identity and responsibilities. St. Anger starts promisingly enough with Frantic, which has Hetfield growling over a classic, violent speed-metal riff, "If I could have my wasted days back/Would I use them to get back on track?" But that's pretty much it for the introspection. The rest of the album has Hetfield wailing like an extremely aggravated Cat in the Hat. On Invisible Kid he moans, "Invisible kid/Locked away in his brain/From the shame and the pain/World down the drain" while the title track relies on the horrendous would-be couplet "St. Anger around my neck/He never gets any respect."

Hetfield is the son of a truck driver and a light-opera singer, and while he writes with all the subtlety of a Peterbilt, he can sing. What saves St. Anger from being a victim of its own self-pity, and actually elevates it into the category of a pretty good metal record, is his voice. Producer Bob Rock has wisely taken the gloss off Metallica's sound, and Hetfield is the biggest beneficiary. On tracks like My World, he comes through in all his gruff and gravelly glory. The unaffected strain in his voice acts as a form of honesty, and it makes lines like "God it feels like it only rains on me" go down a lot easier.

Of course, it helps that Metallica is one ferocious band. In the five years since their last record, guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich have clearly been listening to lots of System of a Down — loud-soft dynamics are all over St. Anger. But no one in music is better at whipping up hurricanes out of thin air than these two, and even though most songs clock in at well over seven minutes, they never lose tension or focus. St. Anger will absolutely rock your head, though it would have been nice if it wanted a piece of your brain too.