ROCK

Metallica: "Load"

Vertigo 532 618-2, 79 minutes Dial-A-Track code 1201

Five years after their 1991 matt black meisterwerk Metallica, the heavy metal leviathan drops another Load on an unsuspecting world. The fearsome foursome are in full on lump hammer mode on this 14 track head wreckers hall, although there's a certain melodic flair creeping in between the machete chop chords and grunting butcher vocals.

Among the choicest cuts are the dishevelled epic, The House That Jack Built, the oedipal ballad, Mama Said, and the recent single, Until It Sleeps. Mercifully, the metallurgic quartet stay firmly welded to big, granite riffs chipped off the rock 'n' roll block.

Electronic: "Raise The Pressure"

Parlophone 7243 8 52168 2 4, 63 minutes

Dial-A-Track code: 1311

Pop's intellectual partnership of Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr are back with an album's worth of musical collaborations, and it's a mixed bag of jangly guitars, dance rhythms and noodly keyboards, immaculately executed and smoothly delivered but lacking in soul.

Forbidden City and For You swing on Marr's pivotal chord constructions, while Dark Angel and Until The End Of Time are locked into Sumner's indie hip hop groove. Although the songs bear the inimitable Electronic bar code, there's little here to upgrade from previous Sumner/ Marr couplings, but plenty to keep the airwaves and dance floors hopping.

His Name Is Alive: Stars On

4AD CAD 6010 CD, 44 minutes

Dial-A-Track code: 1421

His name is Warren Defever, and his fourth album was recorded over the past three years at his house in Livonia, Michigan, in glorious low-fi. Helped by such friends as vocalist Karin Oliver and drummer Trey Many, Defever has put together a homespun concoction of easy listening garageindie, with some Beach Boys homages thrown in. Imagine the High Llamas without the multi-layers, or Brian Wilson with nothing but the sandbox. Songs like This World Is Not My Home, Bad Luck Girl and Universal Frequencies are cottage industry college radio classics carved out of driftwood.

Sultans: "Good Year For Trouble"

Rhythm King ATHY 05 CD, 35 minutes

Dial-A-Track code: 1531

The Sultans, formerly known as Ping, have gotten fed up looking for their jumper, and have decided to take a flame thrower to the entire disco. A Good Year For Trouble sees the Sultans heading down Ramones Road, with gabba gabbahey tunes and cretin rock a plenty.

Frenzy, Mescaline and Rubberman are chemically charged tunes which should get the Japanese teenagers banging their heads till their brains turn into sushi. The addition of former Golden Horde guitarist Sammy Steiger adds to the weight of riffola on offer, and kinky vocalist Niall O'Flaherty slides gleefully dawn the razor blade of decadence and depravity