VELVET THUNDER

You don’t get any epics (on Spend The Night), for sure, but that’s not the point. The songs just come in, crash a sorority party, and leave through the window. Fun, fun, fun.

There’s a fair chance that – especially if you are from outside the USA – you may have never heard of The Donnas. And that’s a shame, because at their peak (essentially, as represented here) this all-female foursome were easily a match for The Runaways, Girlschool, Joan Jett, Rock Goddess or any other more feted girl bands you might care to think of. I describe this period as their peak, because it represents the point where, on signing to Atlantic Records in 2002 – their first major label – their sound completed its evolution from the pop-punk Ramones style of their early albums to a far more hard rock style, if still very much centred around partying and having fun (at least on the first of these albums). Spend The Night – actually their fifth album – was their breakthrough release in 2002, gaining them some chart success (not least with the storming single Take It Off) and a string of media appearances before 2004’s Gold Medal refined things a little. Let’s have a look at them.

Some years ago, I remember penning a review of a previous reissue of Spend The Night for the late lamented Rock Society magazine, and looking back I find that I commented then that ‘You don’t get any epics here, for sure, but that’s not the point. The songs just come in, crash a sorority party, and leave through the window. Fun, fun, fun’, before closing with ‘Come on, spend the night with the Donnas. You know you want to, even if they might steal your wallet in the morning…’ – and those lines still very much sum up this album listening now. It’s utterly irresistible, and made more so by the fact that, still being only 22 or so at the time of recording, this was about as guileless and authentic a ‘party album’ as you’d want to find. All born in the same year (two on the same day), The Donnas grew up in public, from the Ramones-obsessed teens of their raw 1993 debut through to this, just under a decade later. In fact, so in thrall to The Ramones were they earlier on, that they initially all adopted the name ‘Donna’, with just the initials of their surnames making them Donna A, Donna R, Donna F and Donna C. Thankfully that ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ marketing ceased around this period, when they began to be known by their actual names – a deserved thing, as by this time they were very adept musicians in their own right, particularly guitarist Allison Robertson, who by this time was already far, far too good merely to be ‘Donna R’. It’s true that there isn’t a lot of light and shade on the album, and the whole thing cuts like a buzzsaw through your brain as it celebrates being young, wild and having a good time – but you’re so busy getting your rocks off to just about every galloping riff and air-punching chorus here that you just don’t care. You just want to go to the same party. Praise must go to vocalist Brett Anderson, who manages to sidestep the often cringe-inducingly try-hard nature of so much of the ‘bad grrrl’ rock that gets churned out – even Jett (as what one might call an originator of the genre as much as anyone) has been guilty of this on more than one occasion). Instead, Anderson just sounds as if she’s telling it like it is, and damn the consequences.

When it came to following up the album, the band’s collective hands were actually forced a little by the fact that drummer Torry Castellano was suffering from tendonitis in her shoulder at the time of recording, which naturally led to a general slowing down of tempos and pulling back from the brink of untamed youthful exuberance. This turned out to be a rather serendipitous state of affairs, as the resulting Gold Medal shows a more mature and nuanced Donnas, while still retaining enough of the previous fire, just at a point when a second Spend The Night might have been a little too much of the same. The songwriting, arrangement and instrumentation have all advanced here, with there now being space in the sound to allow Maya Fora’s impressive bass lines to be truly appreciated for the first time when shorn of the roaring wall of noise which had been so thrilling, yet also limiting, on previous releases.

Now, running away with the idea that Gold Medal is suddenly a complete change of direction would be entirely wrong. It’s still very much a hard rock album, bolstered by a plethora of riffs strong enough to make you be careful with your feet while driving – that much is absolutely true. But those riffs are given more room, more space to breathe, and to these ears have more staying power in many cases – this is an album which can grow on you, and may well become your favourite Donnas album. There are new influences, certainly – Is That All You’ve Got For Me displays a definite awareness of Nirvana, and the more accessible face of the grunge phenomenon, and it blends it extremely well into the Donnas template. Likewise the exceptionally strong Don’t Break Me Down shows a melodic sensibility far beyond anything the band has attempted before. It’s a little like the late ’70s period when Suzi Quatro moved on from the limiting Chinn/Chapman mould of Can The Can or Daytona Demon, and moved into more subtly melodic fare such as Tear Me Apart, and even the country-flavoured Chris Norman duet Stumblin’ In. On this album, Don’t Break Me Down would be the Tear Me Apart equivalent, while the biggest change – the lively pop-rock feel of the title track – would be the one to echo Stumblin’ In. On this particular track, the base is acoustic rather than electric guitar, while the expected guitar solo is replaced by an acoustic guitar and piano section, which works really well. You might not want a whole album of it, but that’s fine as you just get the one track, and it’s an excellent contrasting moment. To these ears, it’s a superb album, and unfairly underrated by even some fans of the band.

The Atlantic contract ended after Gold Medal, and therefore the final remaining Donnas album, 2007’s Bitchin’, isn’t included here. However, what we do get is a third disc containing eleven B-sides and alternate takes, along with ten live recordings from 2003, and it’s a fine addition to the two studio albums collected here without doubt. The Donnas produced some fine B-sides, but they weren’t always what you might expect. Sure, Rock And Roll Machine (from the flip of Take It Off) is a teenage rebel song par excellence, and Mama’s Boy (from Who Invited You) is a storming heavy rocker with more than an echo of Motorhead’s self-titled anthem – but elsewhere are more subtle delights, as several songs are given the acoustic treatment. Don’t Break Me Down is perhaps the very best of these, its already excellent melodic structure further teased out by the sympathetic instrumentation, while the ‘acoustic’ limit is bent somewhat for the welcome inclusion of an excellent electric guitar solo from the ever-impressive Robertson. The cover of Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself from the Mean Girls soundtrack is also a highly creditable cover. The live material, meanwhile (largely, but not entirely, focusing on Spend The Night) is raw and heavy, though with more than acceptable recording quality – demonstrating beyond doubt that the band could recreate the material in the live environment comfortably.

In short, if you are partial to a bit of all-girl metaphorical ball-busting hard rock and roll – or just energetic and hook-laden hard rock full stop in fact – you really should acquaint yourself with The Donnas if you haven’t already. They might just be a very pleasant surprise – and with this release showcasing their commercial peak and also the development between the two albums, it’s as good a starting point as you could realistically want.