** Papa Vegas

HELLO VERTIGO

(RCA)

When they're not aiming for hit-singledom, Papa Vegas are like a darker, meaner, minor-key-abusing, Black Sabbath-loving Cheap Trick on Hello Vertigo, their debut CD. The likes of "Something Wrong" and "Bombshell" marry heavy guitar riffs to pop melodies without letting things get too ugly. It's the kind of hard rock that in an earlier era would have called for a singer with a ridiculously high range and a few more guitar solos and earned the group opening slots for bands like Guns N' Roses and Skid Row. But singer/guitarist/keyboardist Joel Ferguson is a '90s guy who doesn't quite sing so much as talk with a semi-melodic lilt. Unfortunately, the band's glossier bids for airplay end up in the power-ballad ghetto populated by plodding drums, overprocessed keyboards, and choruses you see coming a mile away.

-- Steven Ovadia