Creed's new single may be called "Higher," but their second album,

Human Clay, couldn't go higher if it wanted to. It will debut at

#1 this week on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Human Clay, which continues the Tallahassee, Fla., quartet's

affinity for thick guitar hooks and spiritual themes, sold 315,670 copies

in the week ending Sunday, according to SoundScan figures released

Wednesday (Oct. 6). It follows up My Own Prison (1997), a

triple-platinum album that featured the rock hits "Torn," "What's This

Life For," "One" and the title track.

"Higher" (RealAudio

excerpt) is the #1 song on the Billboard Active and

Mainstream rock charts and is at #3 on the trade magazine's Active Rock

chart.

Human Clay is the second straight rock album to debut atop the

chart. But last week's #1, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, will

fall harder than any other #1 album this year, dropping to #16 after

selling 89,000 copies last week — about 140,000 fewer than the week

before.

Also debuting in the top 10 will be albums by country star Garth Brooks,

who assumes the role of fictional Australian pop-rock star Chris Gaines

on In the Life of Chris Gaines; rappers Method Man and Redman,

who collaborated on Black Out!; and Latino singer Marc Anthony, who enters the chart with a self-titled disc.

Brooks' album contains his first top-10 pop hit, "Lost in You."

"Garth has accomplished a feat of Herculean proportions," Don Was, who

produced the record, said in a written statement. "He has summoned up

the long-gone thrill of innovation, adventure and risk that was once the

foundation of rock 'n' roll music."

Method Man and Redman's tough-sounding album features production by Erick

Sermon, Wu-Tang Clan mastermind RZA, Wu-Tang protégé

Mathematics and others. Method Man and Redman performed together during

the Hard Knock Life tour earlier this year, providing comic relief and

improvisational touches to a bill headlined by Jay-Z and DMX.

Anthony, a Cuban-American, starred in Paul Simon's ill-fated Broadway

musical "The Capeman." The salsa-tinged single "I Need to Know" appears

in both English and Spanish on his album.

Plenty of other albums will debut in the top 100 of the Billboard

chart, which is based on SoundScan sales figures.

Ex-Police frontman Sting returns to the chart with his first album in

three years, Brand New Day, which will debut at #15. Stevie Wonder,

James Taylor and jazz saxophone player Branford Marsalis, a frequent

Sting collaborator, contributed to the record, which includes "Desert

Rose" and "Prelude to the End of the Game."

The Lost Boyz's LB IV Life (#32) is the New York rap group's first

album since the murder of member Freaky Tah in March. It includes tracks

Freaky Tah recorded with the group before his death.

Folk-rockers the Indigo Girls recorded Come On Now Social (#34)

partly with Sinead O'Connor's backing band earlier this year.

Technophile pop duo Everything But the Girl's Temperamental (#65)

follows up Walking Wounded (1996) by going further into electronic

influences. The British group is best known for the dance hit "Missing."

"DJ techniques offer fresh ideas to any producer schooled on traditional

recording and arranging," Everything But the Girl instrumentalist Ben

Watt, 37, wrote in an e-mail last month. "Cross-fades, backspins, filtering,

motor stops, suspension of mood — all these fed into Temperamental"

(RealAudio

excerpt of title track).

The Long Beach Dub Allstars rose from the ashes of the ska-punk/dub band

Sublime — that band's former bassist and drummer, Eric Wilson and

Bud Gaugh, are part of the seven-man group. The Allstars' first album,

Right Back (#67), features the tracks "Fugazi" and "Like a Dog."

Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace's Happiness ... Is Not a Fish You

Can Catch will bow this week at #69. Rock veterans Yes and ZZ Top

will hit the chart at #99 and #100, respectively, with Ladder and

XXX. Other debuts entering the chart this week include discs from R&B singer Angie Stone and rock band Guster. The former, who performed with The Artist at a private show in New York in September, enters at #141 with her first album, Black Diamond. Guster, who played Woodstock '99, will debut at #169 with Lost and Gone Forever.

After spending months in relative obscurity, the Springfield, Mass.,

hard-rock band Staind has broken into the top 100. The band's major-label

debut, Dysfunction, released in April, will rise from #103 to #78,

after entering the top 200 five weeks ago. Limp Bizkit frontman Fred

Durst helped Staind get a deal with Flip Records after he met them at a

gig in Massachusetts in 1997.