They've Gotta Have It

Altie title for the Donnas' latest: She's Got to Be a Macho Girl, after a piece in The New York Timesabout high school girls said to be ravening fuck monsters bent on raiding the panties of boys nationwide.

Lyrically, about half of Spend the Night is kinda in line with a "let's have sex now, sissy man who drinks mai tais" 'tude. According to the Times, that would make the Donnas part of something called Generation Slut. But if so, I'm Ernest Hemingway—it's a put-on. Donnas riffs, though, are a different matter: convincingly hot forearm smash. And if Brett Anderson sounds like she's rolling her eyes or stifling yawns before the "Honey, please"s in "Take Me to the Backseat," it doesn't wreck anything.

Their guitars and drums speak louder than their words, and the Donnas are ready to go Priestly Turbo if they want to stay metal-poppy, Point of Entry if they shed mixing-board nuisance Chris Lord-Alge. (Didn't anyone ever tell ya, ladies, to scorn all with royalty in their name? C'mon, you know I'm right.)

On the outro of "Five O'Clock in the Morning," guitarist Allison Robertson lets her inner wanker out to roam the room. It could be the shape of things to come. And since in a few years the Donnas are gonna look like a distaff Rose Tattoo, they might as well ditch the ditsy-girls-at-a-slumber-party imagery—it doesn't fit the ampage—and go right to lumpy leather dirtbag now.