In Brief

* * 1/2 Stone Temple Pilots, “Core,” Atlantic. Fans of Alice in Chains’ and Soundgarden’s sonic guitar assaults ought to enjoy this San Diego group’s debut. With the distortion box turned to 10 and a thundering rhythm section, the Pilots have delivered an album that sounds better the louder its played. But unlike the band’s Seattle-based brothers, there’s nothing terribly innovative here.

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