Metallica intended to sell their 2003 comeback album,
St. Anger, with a series of infomercials by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, directors of the acclaimed documentaries Brother's Keeper and Paradise Lost. Bizarre as that failed plan sounds, what's even more bizarre is that those infomercials morphed into the feature-length film Some Kind of Monster (its title taken from an album track on
St. Anger), which documented the making of
St. Anger, including the group therapy sessions that helped the band pull back from the brink of breakup. All movies need a soundtrack, so one was cobbled together to coincide with the release of the movie, hence the birth of
Some Kind of Monster, the EP. Barring an edit of the title track, there is absolutely no new material here: it opens with the full-length version of the title track, then delves into six live tracks recorded on June 11, 2003, in Paris, France. All six of these live tracks were on the international EP release Unnamed Feeling, as well as B-sides for a multi-part international single of the same name. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine