More than half a year after the release of "St. Anger", METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich makes no apologies about the album's raw, underproduced nature, calling it a "powerful" statement that "continues to blow my head off."



In the same interview, Ulrich spoke about the continuing debate in the heavy metal community over whether METALLICA are maverick geniuses or sell-out pussies who have forgot the monochromatic testosterone rule of metal badness.

"I would claim — and I'll try it with a straight face here," Ulrich said, "that that's one thing we've been fighting all these years.

"I hear myself sometimes saying, 'METALLICA's not a heavy metal band' and all this other nonsense, and of course METALLICA is a heavy metal band in a musical (sense). But we always worked hard to fight preconceptions about what heavy metal is. "What you're supposed to look like, how you're supposed to behave, I always found that stuff way too limiting. I always found it a great contradiction, because if rock 'n' roll is about freedom and escapism and individuality, then isn't there a paradox in the conservative mind-set within the heavy metal world?"-

You know what's weird? My hubby and I saw a VH1 special where this album was discussed, and I bought it for him for Christmas thinking it was the really heavy stuff he liked. Usually, he'll tell me how awesome he thinks a CD is, but he hasn't mentioned this one. He likes both Korn albums he got for his birthday, but still no mention of this one.