The Pink Spiders

When we last checked in with Nashville's the Pink Spiders, they'd been signed to Geffen Records, were handed a next-big-thing advance, and went into the studio with producer Ric Ocasek, who polished off a bit of the grit from their cheerfully sleazy power pop meets pop-punk indie debut while pumping up the hooks. Teenage Graffiti, the band's major-label debut, sank in the wake of a lot of misguided promotion, and the Pink Spiders' follow-up was rejected by Geffen, which opted to drop the band rather than release it. Now the Pink Spiders have managed to get back the rights to the album and they've released Sweat It Out through their own Mean Buzz imprint. Brendan O'Brien produced Sweat It Out, and his strategy seems to have been to pile as much gloss on the songs as humanly possible and beef up the Pink Spiders until they sound as if they're channeling their inner Def Leppard. If the Pink Spiders previously sounded like they should be playing at a seedy late-teenage party, Sweat It Out tries to suggest they're ready for the arenas. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide