If this album fails to make it to your record collection you're unlikely to miss it. This dreadful offering from the all-female California-based quartet, who've been rocking for the past 14 years, is a trial to listen to.

The band who were once known for their humour, in releases such as 2002's Spend the Night and their Ramonesque habit of each taking the name Donna, have fallen on fallow times creatively.

Title track Bitchin' lasts just over a minute and you'll wish the 13 tracks that follow were so clipped. There are ludicrous lyrics that have a plodding faux sexiness and more shredded guitars than you'll have heard since Guns N' Roses' heyday. The 1980s parody that the album cover art suggests - a posterior sheathed in tight leather trousers - seems to run through the album, but it has the lameness of Spinal Tap without any of the humour.

It's understandable that the Donnas wanted to make a different record to their dumbed-down major label offering Gold Medal from 2004, but Atlantic must have been delighted they exercised their option to leave if Bitchin' is the result.

The Donnas, formed during eighth grade in Palo Alo, California, taught themselves how to play by rehearsing every day and formed their own record label so they could release music without label interference.

Despite the fact we're in the 21st century there are precious few female acts of note. And it's all the sadder that the Donnas should

have let the side down so badly when there's much about their do-it-yourself-attitude that had this album even been half-decent, could have served as encouragement to other women.

Shame on you, girls.