DONNAS - s/t LP

Unofficial reissue of the first LP. A great slab of American 90's punk.

Forget what you know about The Donnas. On their 1997 debut, they resemble an all-female version of the Ramones. To a certain extent, they best the Ramones here because instead of being in their late 20s, which the Ramones were when they were recording their best music, each member of The Donnas was seventeen or eighteen when they recorded this album.

They bring a naivete to their adult subject matter: smoking pot, huffing glue, having sex. They return rock to its themes of teen rebellion ("Teenage Runaway," "I Don't Wanna Go," "Get Rid of That Girl"). But it always sounds charming and fun. It's remarkably angst-free, considering the musical decade they emerge from. Clearly The Donnas don't break any new ground here, but they do it better than most of the acts who have tried it because they sound exactly like they are narrating their high school lives and not a nostalgic and strategic misremembering of a comic book.