ROCK/POP

Depeche Mode: "Ultra" (Mute) Dial-a-track code: 1971

You've read all the "back from the dead" interviews with Dave Gahan, so you'll know that Depeche Mode's twelfth album almost didn't get made. Not surprisingly, given the sheer hell the band went through in the past year Ultra is a dark, downbeat affair, and the shadowy, paranoid tone is set with Barrel Of A Gun, Dave Gahan's voice almost rasping in its sense of helpless doom. The Love Thieves, in contrast, embraces the night, wrapping itself in a lonely, comforting shroud, while Home finds safe haven in a cage, and Sister Of Night has an almost reverent sense of alienation. The most upbeat tune is probably the current single, It's No Good, but the song's dry humour is 0 powered by the stony bleakness of Freestate and The Bottom Line. Only Depeche Mode could make despair sound so shiny and streamlined.

Various Artists: "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet"(Premier Soundtracks) Dial-a-track code: 2081

My, how the mighty have fallen. They may slap his name all over the sleeve but, unlike the soundtrack for the Zeffirelli's 1970s version of Romeo and Juliet, poor Shakespeare is nowhere to be found on this CD. Instead we have the subtly-named Butthole Surfers floating through Whatever. And Everclear blaspheming their way through Local God. Does this signify the ultimate deterioration of western civilisation as we know it, the final victory of pop culture? Probably. But it's a fab album, digitally enhanced for surround- sound systems - which leads to the delightful situation where you have Shirley, from Garbage, racing round your room. Or Gavin Friday. Mundy, Radiohead, Des'ree. A number one album in America. Deserves to be.

Dinosaur Jr: "Hand It Over" (Blanco Y Negro) Dial-a-track code: 2191

The king of the slackers, J Mascis, is back, and he's joined on a couple of tracks by the sloth prince and princess of shoegazing, Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher of My Bloody Valentine. Dinosaur fans will revel in the layers of grunge and grime which mark Mascis's guitar territory, and they'll get off on the swirls of feedback and guitar f/x which wash all over the tunes, not to mention the Beatlesque trumpet break on I'm Insane and the mellifluous mellotron on Can't We Move This. This is J Mascis in full-on psychedelic grunge mode, sounding like a weird hybnd of Neil Young and The Bevis Frond, and the sound clatters and crashes around your head like a Mexican bumping acid tab.