METAL MERCHANDISE

“DANCING UNDERCOVER.” Ratt. Atlantic. “SOMEWHERE IN TIME.” Iron Maiden. Capitol. At times Ratt sounds like a world beater, the heir apparent to ‘70s raunch-rock masters Aerosmith. But at other times, the L.A. quintet comes across as one-dimensional metal merchants who talk a good game but can’t deliver the goods. This inconsistency plagued Ratt’s first two LPs, and it’s a problem that arises again on its latest release.

The first three cuts on “Dancing Undercover” are all very listenable slices of melodic crunch rock. “Dance,” “One Good Lover” and “Drive Me Crazy” show why Ratt is all the rage among the leather-and-long-hair set.

But then they slip into snooze-ville: The melodies fade, the big, blustery chords start sounding perfunctory, and you realize that Ratt would be better off releasing EPs.

Iron Maiden, meantime, is making a bid to become the Allman Brothers of heavy metal. As with its previous LP, “Powerslave,” “Somewhere in Time” contains mostly long songs designed in part to highlight the dueling guitars of Adrian Smith and Dave Murray. Though neither of these ax-men is going to make you forget Duane Allman, “Somewhere in Time” features enough fleet-fingered fret-work to satisfy the most animated air-guitarist.

Diehard fans of the English quintet will be more than satisfied with the sound of this banging, epic metal, but the songwriting isn’t strong enough to convince the unconverted. Iron Maiden is no schlock heavy-metal band, but it would be better offreturning to shorter, more focused material.