I'm guessing some people in their management sat at a table and tried to come up with something cool and totally failed. Metallica think's it's either really cool or don't care.
Speaking of the black album,i think songs like "Holier Than Thou","Dont Thread On Me","Through The Never","Of Wolf And Man","The God That Failed" and "The Struggle Within" are all harder than anything for example Megadeth ever has written,most other thrash than Metallica always sounded kinda uninspired,forced and mickey mouse-ish to me,even the black album manages to rock the shit out of 90% of all thrash bands in my opinion.
If how much better St. Anger was than Load and Reload are any indication (yes, the mixing was bad; but at least there were 3 or 4 songs that were decent), this album might not be half-bad.