In Brief

* * 1/2 Catherine Wheel, “Happy Days,” Fontana/Mercury. After more than four years of vigorous moping in a sprawling but melodious guitar-charged gloom, this British quartet’s music has coalesced into a startlingly concrete album. Tighter song structures yield leaner, meaner results.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (e x cellent).