Lou Reed got married, settled down and became downright respectable long ago, while Iggy seems to have settled into his role as David Bowie's alter ego and ping-pong partner for the long run. But connoisseurs of good old-fashioned rock & roll decadence needn't despair. If the new albums from the Germany-based Sisters of Mercy and Sweden's Leather Nun are any indication, Europe is the place where excess is still celebrated, deadpan, to the tune of guitar feedback sustained over a cold, crude beat.

Once a proper band, the Sisters of Mercy are now the vehicle for a spectral croaker who goes by the name Eldritch. And he's wiped off all traces of the sub-Sabbath sludge produced by his former band mates (who trudge on as the Mission U.K.) and donned an orchestrated rock-disco groove fashioned by producer Jim Steinman.

Imagine Meat Loaf joining the Cure for a remake of Lou's Berlin, and you're in Floodland territory. Hilarious, sure, but always listenable at the very least. And "This Corrosion" is a bona fide toè tapper of a single. What's next? Phil Spector and Lydia Lunch? Quincy Jones and Nick Cave? "Mutt" Lange and the Butthole Surfers? The underground barrier has fallen.

Language has always been the main barrier between Euro-groups and American success, but bland accents and occasional mispronunciations never stopped Abba, and they aren't slowing down the Leather Nun either. The latter Swedes even pay hommage to the former with an appropriately peppy cover of "Gimme Gimme Gimme (a Man After Midnight)." Force of Habit is a compilation of previous foreign releases, and perhaps "I Can Smell Your Thoughts" is more representative of the Nun's oeuvre. While a single chord is bled dry by shrieking guitars and keyboards, vocalist Jonas Almqvist slithers around like a lounge lizard. Mercifully, the Leather Nun transcends its own kitschy trappings on "Pink House." Almost. You can laugh while a jangly heartland riff is re-created, then destroyed, and Almqvist bellyaches about being "committed to a life in a Johnny Coe-gur video." But the power-pop chorus is hooky enough to give pause to even the loyalist Midwesterner and Mellencamp fan: "I'm forced to live on the porch of the Pink House/Please, please save me from the pink houses!" Don't anybody dare tell these guys that Iggy grew up in a Michigan trailer park. That would spoil the fun. (RS 526)

MARK COLEMAN