* Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas

RED VOODOO

(MCA)

Look out, Jimmy Buffett: Sammy Hagar wants to be the new king of booze rock. Red Voodoo is the latest project keeping a displaced frontman out of our social-services system. It's all about partying, drinking, and, of course, screwing, or "shagging" as Hagar calls it, presumably to show that he's down with Austin Powers.

Hagar takes Buffett's love of margaritas and ups the ante to an obsession with tequila that permeates the album from its cover art to the song "Más Tequila," basically a cover of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2." Apparently drinking hasn't helped Hagar's originality problem -- each song here reminds you of something in heavy rotation on a classic-rock station, from Robert Palmer to the Who to, of course, Van Halen. And Hagar's lyric-writing skills haven't gotten any better over the years: "A picture comes to me/George Lucas style/And I cop a digital smile." Why don't we all pass on the album and head straight for the bottle.

-- Steven Ovadia