Another bang-up Metallica job

Metallica

“St. Anger” (Elektra)

*** 1/2

No slow songs. No guitar solos. Metallica hasn’t exactly gone retro but does resort to a few rudimentary habits here, starting out with an ancient speed-metal riff right out of 1983. But there’s no going back to the days of permanent overdrive. Metallica is too sophisticated for that now. Even the groan and slash of singer-guitarist James Hetfield is less rigid as he struggles openly to understand his own anger. This isn’t fiction. Not after rehab, Napster and near-fatal band turmoil. Drummer Lars Ulrich slams a rave-up beat behind “Sumkinda” as Hetfield warns, “This is the voice of silence no more!”

“St. Anger” (which came out last week in a last-minute rescheduling) marks the band’s first album of all-new material since 1997’s “Reload,” back when Metallica was adjusting its sound to cope with grunge. “St. Anger” feels more natural. The album’s lengthy slabs of metal are not epics but heavy meditations. Although that means there’s nothing here of such diamond-hard perfection as “Enter Sandman,” the band finds fresh territory without ever going soft.

Nothing sounds designed just for space on your local Clear Channel playlist, while all fits comfortably enough in a metal world expanding under the influence of next-gen heroes Queens of the Stone Age and System of a Down. Some of that momentum fades slightly on later tracks, but the force of will behind it all remains steady. The band members perform their headbanging duty like the committed journeymen they are.

-- Steve Appleford

Annie Lennox

“Bare” (J)

*** 1/2

Just as you should never say “never,” it’s dangerous to use words such as “best” and “most gripping” in reviews. But there are two tracks in Lennox’s first collection of new songs in a decade (due in stores Tuesday) that deserve the exclamations.

The first is “Pavement Cracks,” an expression of bruised emotions that summarizes the album’s theme of desolation. Lennox wrote it after the 2000 breakup of her 12-year marriage.

As a singer, Lennox brings a heightened sense of drama to the tune without sacrificing its intimacy, and she resorts to a near whisper in the opening sequence to convey her sense of despair and loss. “I’m going nowhere and I’m 10 steps back,” she declares. “All my dreams are fading fast.”

The pulse of the song then picks up, reflecting the galloping optimism of the brightest moments of U2’s “The Joshua Tree” album. There’s even a touch of gospel exuberance in her vocal that suggests a belief that she will again feel whole and free. Then, suddenly, the optimism vanishes and Lennox is reduced again to a whisper. It’s the best mainstream pop track of the year so far.

The year’s most gripping pop moment may well be the somber “Oh God (Prayer),” in which she wonders if anyone on high is listening to her cry for comfort and support. “If there was ever a soul to save, it must be me,” she says in stark, desolate tones.

Not everything on “Bare” is as eloquent and illuminating as these two songs, but there is a consistent sense of ambition and style that makes this a brave and inspiring work. The musical textures, from the aggressive funk touches of “Bitter Pill” to the diva-like sweep of “The Saddest Song I’ve Got,” add color and punch to the starkness of most of the lyrics.

-- Robert Hilburn

The Becker-Fagan beat goes on

Steely Dan

“Everything Must Go” (Reprise)

***

Even if you like a band that takes its time, the 20-year gap between Steely Dan albums that ended with “Two Against Nature” in 2000 was a little prolonged. At least they came back in fine form, winning the Grammy for album of the year.

The follow-up (in stores Tuesday) comes just three years later, and while it doesn’t sound rushed or half-formed -- the firm of Becker & Fagan would never put out anything that didn’t meet the highest standards of musical craft -- the usual freshness and hipster soul aren’t there. They’ve never come closer to fulfilling their detractors’ wrongheaded image of them as dispassionate artisans, and they’ve never relied so much on familiar Dan musical signatures.

America’s post-boom wasteland of the young decade is something tailor made for this team’s trenchant eye, and they do have their fun with it, in sketches of “the early resigned” and a vision of the apocalypse in the last mall. The “everything must go” of the title includes morals as well as merchandise.

But instead of sticking with these ideas, Steely Dan largely fills out the album with light, playful trifles, indulging some film-noir and pulp-fiction fantasies. They are seductively turned trifles, and there’s a detached, literary sort of pleasure to be taken in their cerebral slapstick. Even if you’ve heard this music before, most every song offers at least one nugget of utterly original language.

-- Richard Cromelin

Quick spins

Jewel

“0304” (Atlantic)

** 1/2

Jewel goes pop. She’s left the farm and hit the dance floor, a yodeler-turned-sex-bomb. Some acoustic guitar can still be heard beneath the breakbeats of producer Lester A. Mendez, and she remains a preachy, lovesick poetess. But give her credit for a brave and callous move, going where her fans may not follow. Flashier than folk, but not Xtina either.

-- Steve Appleford

David Banner

“Mississippi: The Album” (SRC/Universal)

***

The Magnolia State may not be regarded as a hip-hop hotbed, but Banner is out to change that with his explosive major-label debut album. The Jackson-based rapper-producer displays tremendous range on this sizzling collection, whose 16 cuts range from the ultra-rowdy “Might Git Cha” with Lil Jon to the socially aware “Mississippi.” With equal parts rage and activism, Banner delivers an adrenaline rush of an album.

-- Soren Baker

Soraya

“Soraya” (EMI Latin)

** 1/2

After a three-year battle with breast cancer, this engaging Colombian American singer returns with an album of songs inspired by her survival, not her suffering. Her lovely voice remains warm and engaging, forceful but with a fragile falsetto. Musically, this is somewhat undistinguished, even anonymous pop, compared with her more Latin-tinged 2000 release, with its rich stylistic variety. One exception is “Naufrago,” a stark and vivid song that takes us on her journey from despair to rebirth.

-- Agustin Gurza

Bad Azz

“Money Run” (Out of Bounds/Bayside)

***

This talented Long Beach rapper’s strong third album makes his relative obscurity hard to understand. His introspective rhymes on the soulful “My Streets” display an optimism and hope that are rare in hard-core hip-hop, and he serves up another surprise -- a thoughtful gangster love song -- with “Come and Get It.” The no-nonsense title track thumps with digitized funk, showing that Bad Azz can shine in a range of subject matter.

-- S.B.

The Like Young

“Art Contest” (Parasol)

***

Imagine a modern-day “American Gothic”: Joe Ziemba, at attention, stoically holding his six-string, and his wife, Amanda, primly at his side clutching her drumsticks. Ready, set, rock ... for (only) 24 minutes, the painting comes to life, crunching Weezerifically behind boy-girl vocals that suggest Elvis Costello crashing a Go-Go’s slumber party. Biting lyrically, inviting sonically -- now that’s a marriage made in heaven. The Like Young perform Saturday at the Knitting Factory Hollywood.

-- Kevin Bronson

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.