If you were feeling charitable you could label The Donnas' debut as a tribute album. Alternatively, if you were feeling in any way vindictive you'd be looking up the word plagiarism in the nearest dictionary and putting a call through to the Ramones' lawyers. The songs may be their own but The Donnas have stolen the d-u-m-b philosophy and, unabashed, have squeezed their own compositions into the sacred template. Songs flash past so quickly an accompanying sonic boom is a distinct possibility. There's a fixation with sixties music and culture - rock and roll, high schools, drive-ins, girl group call and response - and a weak attempt at offensive humour with "I Wanna Be A Unabomber". The album is littered with enough Hey! Hey!'s, 1-2-3-4's, Gimme! Gimme!'s and I Don't Wanna's to satisfy the cravings of the most fanatical Ramones' addict. Add all of that together and the reason why this album doesn't work becomes readily apparent: The Donnas are not the Ramones!
What's the point? This could quite easily have been one of those novelty send-ups by The Chipmunks. Brett Anderson shouts and screams like a banshee using a malfunctioning megaphone, the guitars are brandished like clubs and strummed as though fingers have been amputated and replaced with sausages, while I'm convinced a proper drum-kit was outside their budget and so Torry Castellano is reduced to bashing tubs full of frozen peas. It's amateurish and enervating which normally isn't a bad combination, but here sticks so closely to the ideals of a far better band, the finished product is rendered redundant. It's as if The Donnas were formed in a petrie dish from the dissected tissue remnants of the Ramones' "Teenage Lobotomy". They would slowly evolve a personality of their own and be able to afford a recording studio which didn't sound like the inside of a corrugated shed, but perhaps it's understandable why the band have always remained on the margins. They were never going to be as cool or as iconic as their greatest influence.