Metal Underground.com

When you're going for the kind of no-frills rock that Swedish rockers Belladonna are going for on their self-titled EP, the one thing you need more than anything else is the riffs to back it up. Unfortunately, that's the area in which the band's lacking the most.

The band is obviously going for a 1980s sleaze rock vibe, mixing hints of AC/DC with some Poison and Ratt-style guitar lines on tracks like "Sweet Hell" and the title track "Belladonna." The problem is that guitarists H.B. Jewel and Andy don't seem all that interested in going beyond really generic sounds. "Belladonna" in particular has a riff that's basically "blues-rock-101." Bassist Peter Griffin and drummer Raz Cadillac don't exactly add much in terms of complexity or memorable material either, though at least Raz Cadillac has some interesting cowbell fills on the "Dr. Feelgood"-ish opening to "Closer & Closer."

Singer Bobby Hott is the star here, with a versatile voice that goes from low-range Rob Halford on "Belladonna" to a great approximation of Ozzy Osbourne on the comic-horror track "Roadkill," which is definitely the best track on the disc, owing to both the vocals and the band's go-for-broke punk-ish riffing.

Though not poisonous, Belladonna's self-titled EP isn't particularly palatable either. It's simply a generic regurgitation of 1980s sounds, without much of the soul that went into creating the originals.