Yes. I distinctly remember pre-release reviews describing it as "mind-blowingly heavy" and "like Slayer" and all kinds of hyperbolic bullshit about how it was so RAW and AWESOME. The only thing they said that proved what they listened to was the same album were lyrical extracts and talking about how "the drumming sounds like a steel keg" only they described it more as "the drumming is so incredibly extreme that it sounds like he's banging on a steel fucking keg made of METAL!!!!" Thus, this article really doesn't mean much, if anything, to me even though I'm very interested in the outcome of the album.
As a side note, a lot of the POST release reviews of St Anger were very positive. I remember a lot of them in mainstream magazines praising the rawness and the "experimentation" in the vocals etc.