I probably agree with 2.5/5...I've had a friend of mine bitching at me for weeks now about how its not fair to judge an album against the band's past output, which I've consistently tried to tell him is crap - you can't just forget that Metallica have made some of the best music in the past two decades.
Also, I hate the fact that people say "How can you say its not that bad?? Its Metallica's worst album!!". Well of course its their worst album - they're
Metallica. Every band has a worst album, and, for example, Zeppelin's worst still kicks the shit out of a good majority of the bands out there.
Anyway, good review
Congrats on avoiding what I just did and treating this like another rock and metal St Anger thread :/