Metallica has obviously tried very, very, very hard to make an album that sounds wild and raw. What fans will get instead with St. Anger - in stores tomorrow - is a cluttered snapshot of heavy metal dinosaurs in turmoil and peril. The big money, the big egos, the lawsuits, the disgruntled former bass player, the lead singer in rehab - it all must've taken a terrible toll.

This is not to say that the resulting music is bad. It at least passes the minimum tensile strength test of heavy metal - it's fast and sounds better the louder it is. Is it heavy? Oh, yes, it is heavy. The songs are filled with thick, distorted guitar sludge and plenty of percussive bombs, thanks to Lars Ulrich's drums so high and proud in the mix. Ulrich is really the star, after all. This is actually heavier than a lot of what Metallica has done before - but at what cost? Memorable melodies are lacking, lyrics are confused and sometimes little more than a series of convenient rhymes and the songs generally plow on long after they've made their point. Overall, St. Anger comes off as an overworked and overwrought attempt to make the ultimate heavy metal "epic."

Of course, this is just my gut reaction, based on a quick once-through listen at the record company office yesterday. It could grow on me. However, I am not prepared to let it grow on me as long as Metallica took to get around to making it - six long years since the last studio release. Here's a more in-depth look at St. Anger:

FRANTIC: Machine-gun cadence opens a song that lives up to its name. Singer James Hetfield starts with a pertinent question, "If I could have my wasted days back, would I use them to get back on track?" Album generally goes downhill from here - but it's a long and bumpy hill.

ST. ANGER: Must be the patron saint of, well, anger. With at least four different rhythmic sections jarringly shifting into one another - including that old double-time, double-kick drum pounding - this song is a fine headbanger, but ends up the victim of its own excesses. Song is either about the joys of letting go or the sorrows of hanging onto one's anger. Perhaps it's vice versa.

SOME KIND OF MONSTER: Apparently about some kind of monster. After crashing through the walls and breaking all the good china, this shambling track quickly wears out its welcome.

DIRTY WINDOW: Amongst the fast metal riffs in another three-chord wonder, Hetfield is in a dark and confused place. From rattling off a list of pointless words - "projector, protector, rejector, infector, defector, injector" and so on - he ends up drinking "from the cup of denial," judging the world "from my throne." Don't have a clue.

INVISIBLE KID: Here's a cry for help from a passive-aggressive teen, set to the tune of a sinister, mid-tempo riff that should have heads a-bangin'. Like the simpler material on St. Anger, and there's isn't much, this song is one of the strongest.

MY WORLD: Another troubled youth empowerment anthem - "It's my world/you can't have it!" - framed in another jumble of rhythmic shifts.

SHOOT ME AGAIN: Think John Wayne's tough hombre from the movie The Cowboys. A man gets shot but won't fall down, taunting his shooter to "shoot me again!" The guy gets pretty angry about it, too. The Duke would've liked this one.

SWEET AMBER: A fast double-kick drum and giant guitar riffs set the stage for a tale of a woman who's not so sweet after all. Not exactly a song for the ladies.

THE UNNAMED FEELING: It's that dark place again - could be a sleepless night during a particularly difficult step on the 12-step program. Hard to say. This mid-tempo grinder with gothic overtones fails to answer the question, what is the unnamed feeling? Don't know. It's unnamed.

PURIFY: Some excellent anger here. Pare away the choppy noodling and there's a fine rocker lurking within. Hetfield howls the praises of "my sweet turpentine" before declaring, "I can find the dirt on anything." Perhaps it's Metallica's version of Lady Macbeth's plea, "Out, damn spot!"

ALL WITHIN MY HANDS: Nice and fast and yes, quite angry, though it gets tedious long before it lurches to a halt. "Love is control, I'll die if I don't let go," Hetfield spouts a confusing sentiment before describing various things one can do within one's hands: kill, crush, squeeze, choke, and so on. Share your feelings, people. (More on Metallica)

Track Listing
1. Frantic
2. St. Anger
3. Some Kind Of Monster
4. Dirty Window
5. Invisible Kid
6. My World
7. Shoot Me Again
8. Sweet Amber
9. Unnamed Feeling
10. Purify
11. All Within My Hands