Buzzin Music

Juliana Hatfield – How To Walk Away (Ye Olde Records) – Album Review

The 10th solo album from Juliana Hatfield begins with The Fact Remains. Like many of the tracks on How To Walk Away, the song sounds instantly recognisable as a Juliana Hatfield bitter-sweet melodic pop song; and from its opening vocal, sounds familiar in a warm not tired way.

There are two sides to Juliana Hatfield’s long solo career, and How To Walk Away falls into the perfect easy listening pop bracket rather than rock distorted angst.

The album includes 10 new tracks including the new single, This Lonely Love, featuring a duet with The Psychedelic Furs’ Richard Butler. Butler’s lazy vocal delivery works well with Hatfield’s bright, wispy style.

Listening to this track, I think it would be great if as many people would get to hear this as they would have at the height of both Juliana Hatfield & The Psychedelic Furs commercial popularity. But commercial pop has moved on, become more manufactured in many respects, and I fear much of the single and album interest will initially come from forty-somethings rather than fresh youthful teenagers.

Nostalgia did get the better of me when I saw the tracklist included Just Lust. It would be interesting to hear a Juliana Hatfield cover version of an old Buzzcocks b-side. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a cover version, and furthermore one of the weaker tracks on the album.

I confess to not having heard all of Juliana Hatfield’s albums since the peak of her popularity in the early post-grunge 1990’s playing bass on The Lemonheads’ best album, It’s A Shame About Ray and with her own band – The Juliana Hatfield Three. But How To Walk Away made me revisit the albums I do have, and want to seek out those I originally missed.

Juliana Hatfield has a distinct vocal style and I love her accent, and she continues to write sweet sounding pop songs with sometimes dark candid lyrics that offer an insight to her true self. Listening to Such A Beautiful Girl…

She’s such a beautiful girl,
But she lives in an ugly world.
They want to knock that smile off her face,
So she shuts her door and she writes and dreams.

This album is testimony to the fact that she is still a great singer/songwriter and the world of pop is a better place knowing Juliana Hatfield is still releasing great new material.

How To Walk Away by Juliana Hatfield is due for release on 19th August on her own Ye Olde Records label.