In Brief

Various artists, “Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight” soundtrack, Atlantic (***). The first half of this hard-rock soundtrack from the new “Crypt”-sponsored film is an exceptional sequence of new and semi-obscure tracks by Pantera, Ministry, Megadeth and the Melvins. Like “Tales from the Crypt” itself, the album’s music runs the gamut from dark humor to gnashing Angst .

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).