Juliana Hatfield - How to Walk Away

While the 1990s have come and gone for most of us, Juliana Hatfield's new album retains that familiar alterna-indie-rock sound. It's the sound that made us care about her in the first place--that and Ms. Hatfield's signature wispy, kittenish voice singing about the lighter side of heartbreak. "The fact remains," Ms. Hatfield sings in the first track of the same name on her recent release, How to Walk Away, and so too remains the Juliana Hatfield we all remember.



Stand up and deliver

As one of the more the prominent indie rock veterans of my radio days past (after all, she was the first to ever tell me, "You never needed them, you never needed anyone"--which ended up being important and sound advice), I've come to expect big things from Juliana Hatfield.

Hatfield is one of the few who can pull off the cutesy thing--the sentimentality--and still sound great, and more importantly, sincere. However, this album still has its moments that are so syrupy sweet that they may induce some lip-biting, eye-rolling, and heavy sighing. The toyish piano in "Remember November," the drum machine on "Such a Beautiful Girl," and of course, "My Baby..."--are you sure this isn't an after school special?

For that of such a solid music figure, Hatfield's songwriting so often straddles that line between surefire underground sing-alongs, girl-rock anthems, and then the much less memorable songs that qualify as pleasant filler. Being a fan of Ms. Hatfield, I always hope for a higher dose of the former rather than the latter, but with each album she releases, it seems to work the other way around. With How to Walk Away, Hatfield again delivers her dependable standout single ("So Alone"), a handful of moments of sweet indie-rock greatness (including the smartly-placed album opener, "The Fact Remains"), and then...the rest of the album.

There's the echoing high-hat, the soft, driving snare hits, the distant, rainy-day electric guitars, and Hatfield sings, "I'm talking to myself / Is anybody listening," but what really makes "So Alone" a good song? Composition? Delivery? Production? Well, all of those things, yes, but also the way that they all come together. This is a good example of all of those things gone right.



Meanwhile, over on the other side of the ranch

While it's nice to have the Juliana Hatfield we all know and love churning out the peculiar "comfort food"-type of music that she has originated and continues to dominate, hearing lines like, "there's an open window where we are / it's a beautiful night full of stars / and isn't it a heavenly breeze / whispering sweetly through the screen" from the song "My Baby...", leaves much to be desired. A cliché per line is generally not considered par for a songwriter that's been at it for nearly twenty years.

Oh, that demanding public

After listening to this album for the twelfth spin or so, and the nostalgic sounds become more than just nostalgia, feeling like I am, in fact, in 1995, it occurs to me that this album might have been more impressive had it been released a decade ago. How to Walk Away might well be no lesser of an album than any of Hatfield's previous works, but by now, those of us following along have grown up a bit, and expect that Ms. Hatfield has, too. But maybe lyrical profundity and growth in musical stylings is too much to ask. Perhaps Ms. Hatfield really just wants to sing about relationships gone awry and those same old twinkling little stars--maybe it's all about having something to sway your hips to--and I suppose that's okay, too. I still can't help but feel that she was capable of a little more than what How to Walk Away reflects, but that's strictly my personal take.



Particulars

I must admit, this album is slowly but surely growing on me, but it may have more to do with basking in the nostalgia factor than realizing that the music is somehow better than what I heard the first time around. It's still Juliana Hatfield--you know, of the Juliana Hatfield Three who played with the Lemonheads and opened for Jeff Buckley--indie rock pioneer of the go-go boots and plaid-skirt-wearing, brokenhearted kind.

How to Walk Away is released on Hatfield's own Cambridge-based Ye Olde Records and was produced by Andy Chase at Stratosphere Sound in New York City.