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Bitchin'

by

The Donnas

 
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Bitchin'
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Avg: 3.5 (98 ratings)

The Donnas' now-perfected rock & roll is party music meant to be shouted-out-loud.

  • We Say...

    Review by Kristina Feliciano

    Bitchin’ may sound like the title of a Jack Johnson album, but these ain't no floppy-haired surfer-boy tunes. On their first release on their newly minted Purple Feather label, the Donnas are totally axing for it, adding '80s metal licks à la Van Halen and Def Leppard to their now-perfected rock & roll snarl and debauchery-championing, you-don’t-own-me lyrics. (The band, which has been together since 1993, also sports a new logo, a silver design recalling vintage Judas Priest that bored schoolkids would be copying onto their loose-leaf notebooks during class if this were two decades earlier.) Bitchin’ is party music meant to be shouted-out-loud, with the opener's surprisingly dark riffage giving way to anthemic tracks like “What Do I Have to Do,” “Here for the Party” and “Better Off Dancing.”

    The disc’s heavier sound suits the Donnas, whose last album, the sleek Gold Medal, seems to have been designed for girl-power movie soundtracks. There’s a rawness to Bitchin’ that recalls their self-titled 1998 debut, on which they came off as the Ramones’ long-lost younger sisters. (The disc even sounds like it was recorded in the bathroom of CBGB.) But the new album is also smart and skintight — the work of a band that knows who they are and what they do well. So what if they’re not reinventing the steel? Or, as eMusic member TFox wrote in a posting about the group’s 2001 album, The Donnas Turn 21: “The Donnas are great in much the same way that Andrew WK is. They rock, and they rock hard and thoroughly, and if you want depth go cry into your Sigur Ros records.”

  • They Say...

    Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

    It's hard not to think that "bitchin'" has been used to describe the Donnas' music many a time, so it's an appropriate enough title for their seventh album. At the very least, it has a better ring than The Donnas Turn 27, but that might have been a more truthful summation of this record, because advanced age is beginning to hit the band big time. What was once snappy and energetic is turning a little bit heavier and sludgier, a sure sign of high mileage, and that's all the more evident because the band is doing the same thing it always has: turning out party anthems -- party anthems that are seeming a little less ironic each time around. It's hard to call this a holding pattern since the Donnas never, ever aspired to art, but this isn't quite like the Ramones, where the signature sound revealed new wrinkles along the way. This is more like the band is pounding out new tunes every two or three years whether it needs to or not. Working bands are always appreciated, but it's hard not to wish that there was a little more joie de vivre on Bitchin'. After all, if you're gonna be a party band, the least you can be is fun, something that used to come easily to the Donnas but now is a struggle on this maddeningly uneven album. When the Donnas indulge in their fetish for '80s metal -- whether it's on the Judas Priest pulse of "Wasted," the Def Leppard lifts on "Save Me," the arena-filling thump of "Here for the Party" and "Smoke You Out," or even "Don't Wait Up for Me," which comes close to ripping off the riff to "Don't You Wanna Touch Me" from Joan Jett, their biggest influence -- they fulfill the trashy promise of their title, but this doesn't happen often enough. The problem is, the Donnas once rocked as if they were tanked to the gills but they now sound like they're playing with ferocious hangovers they just can't shake -- and it's hard to have a good party if the threat of the morning after hangs over the whole affair.

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