The Donnas - Spend the Night

I first heard of the Donnas three years ago from a friend who described them as "this really hot chick band". Well a lot has changed in the music world in three years. There are now more people who hate Fred Durst then there are who like him, nu metal is on its way out, and The Donnas are on a major label. With the release of Spend the Night the girls aim for mainstream success. We all know there can be pitfalls to signing to a major. You run the risk of loosing artistic control, alienating indie fans, and you just might be turned into the next Linkin Park before you even realize what is happening. However, The Donnas prove that it is possible to avoid all these pitfalls while at the same time taking advantage of the benefits a major label can provide. Spend the Night is packed full of tracks that could easily show up as the ladies next single, while at the same time maintain the band's chick rock attitude and have a punk rock flair. The vocals are dead on, the guitars are great, and the band packs the rock on songs like Dirty Denim. However, if your a fan of deep subject matter, you won't find that here. After about halfway through Spend the Night the songs begin to sound rather formulaic and frankly start to get boring. With the subject matter rarely straying away from the central themes of partying, sex, and guys and the tightly packed mixing of Chris Lord-Alge you find yourself wondering if perhaps the disc has already started over and you just didn't notice. When I first listened to Spend the Night I was very pleased to see that The Donnas had not totally changed their sound with hopes of greater success. These girls really do rock, although from the looks of the band these days you may never guess that. What bothered me about the album was the lack of depth to the songs and lyrics. The girls clearly have something new and interesting to bring to the musical table, perhaps in the future we will see a bit more experimentation and variation. [lp.instavid.com]