Record Rack

** Metallica, “S&M;, Metallica With the San Francisco Symphony Conducted by Michael Kamen,” Elektra. The reason the Stones and the Who got loud in the first place was so they could be as powerful as a symphony but as personal as a few slobs in a bar. So whenever a rock band is attended by an orchestra, as Metallica was by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for two concerts last spring, you’re bound to wonder how well the slobs are served--and on the live album from the event (due in stores Tuesday), they get some soup in their laps.

Multiple Grammy and Oscar winner Michael Kamen’s arrangements often display an 007 gushiness that works against the dynamic tension James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Jason Newsted have labored so long to perfect. And especially on rippers such as “Fuel,” the stringed riffs-between-riffs just clutter up the table.

But when slower songs are truly re-imagined, as in the Zeppelin-ish treatment lavished on “Wherever I May Roam” and the massed low-end dissonance and climactic groove of “Outlaw Torn,” the tuxes pay their way. A pair of new tunes --the anvil-sludger “Minus Human” and especially the chugging, spirited “No Leaf Clover”--are sturdy additions to the canon.

While overall one gets an audio impression of four brilliant rock ‘n’ roll bruisers struggling manfully in an ocean of “class,” the sight of 80-some longhairs huffing away on “Hero of the Day” must have been a jaw-dropper. Wait for “S&M;’s” February video release, and for a more creative alternate take on Metallica, consider the 1996 Finnish chamber opus “Apocalyptica Plays Metallica by Four Cellos.”

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.