The Donnas: Turn 21 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The Donnas Turn 21 is the sound of mini-mart feminism: four sugar-and-spite femme fatales "sniffing everything under the sink," cruising for boy toys in their lemon-scented rides, and pretending they're Gene, Paul, Peter and Ace cutting Destroyer. But if the Donnas are growing up fast, their music is in no hurry to keep up. The quartet's fourth album is interchangeable with its third, maintaining the pop polish that made Get Skintight (1999) a sugar-buzz classic. This time they faithfully cover Judas Priest's "Living After Midnight" instead of Motley Crue's "Too Fast for Love," while reshuffling the same five chords, cranking out the tribal-drum breakdowns, and living to "party like Cheech and Chong." But those bong-hugging caballeros got nothing on singer Donna A., who lights it up like there's no tomorrow in "Nothing to Do" and still has enough sense not to drive. (RS 861)

GREG KOT