Juliana Hatfield – Lightning Might Strike – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Juliana Hatfield – Blood – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Juliana Hatfield – Bed – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/11/12/juliana-hatfield-bed-album-review/

The Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray

Article for www.nomreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2019/02/01/the-lemonheads-its-a-shame-about-ray/

The Juliana Hatfield Three – Whatever, My Love – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

http://nomoreworkhorse.com/2015/02/16/the-juliana-hatfield-three-whatever-my-love-album-review/

Most-read articles in 2014

Here are the most-read articles on Sacred Cowpats in 2014:

10. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/03/album-review-nick-cave-and-bad-seeds.html

One half of Cave and co's 2004 set of albums, reviewed for your delectation

8. Juliana Hatfield - Only Everything

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/08/album-review-juliana-hatfield-only.html

Hatfield's underrated follow-up to Become What You Are jointly with...

8. The Lemonheads - Car Button Cloth

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/06/album-review-lemonheads-car-button-cloth.html

This Lemonheads album is a bit all over the shop, but when it works... (a bit like the band really)

7. Mark Eitzel - 60 Watt Silver Lining

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/07/album-review-mark-eitzel-60-watt-silver.html

Eitzel does smooth, wine bar jazz.  You know it couldn't last.

6. Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/07/album-review-leonard-cohen-im-your-man.html

An oldie but a goodie.  The album too.

5. Top albums of 2014

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/12/top-10-albums-of-2014.html

One of the many broken-hearted lists of the year.

4. The Jesus and Mary Chain - The Power of Negative Thinking

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/04/album-review-jesus-and-mary-chain-power.html

More Jesus and Mary Chain B-sides than any normal person could possibly deal with.

3. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/08/album-review-tom-waits.html

Inscrutable, uncategorisable Tom Waits

2. The Durutti Column - Short Stories For Pauline

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/05/album-review-durutti-column-short.html

Exquisite guitar goodness from Vini Reilly.

1. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos VII

http://www.meg.ie/a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-atomos-vii-ep/

Transcendent EP teaser for the full album.

Highlights for 2015

It's looking quiet enough so far in 2015.  The Juliana Hatfield Three have reunited and are releasing the follow up to 1993's Become What You Are on 17th Feb and based on the first track to emerge If I Could, it will be a summery janglefest.  Dakota Suite are collaborating with Quentin Sirjacq for The Indestructibility of the Already Felled which should appear early in 2015.  If it's noise you're looking for there's a choice between A Place To Bury Strangers' fourth album Transfixiation, out 17th Feb or The Soft Moon's third album Deeper, out 31st March.

Scott Weiland is recording a rock album with The Wildabouts.  Entitled Blaster, it should be out in March.  Elsewhere, Richmond Fontaine and And So I Watch You From Afar have new albums expected.  On the more outlandish scale of the spectrum, Mark Kozelek is working with industrial band Godflesh, and maybe My Bloody Valentine will release an EP??

There'll surely be more than this next year...

Album Review: Juliana Hatfield - Only Everything

Juliana Hatfield's third album, released in 1995 saw her music take a harder edge.  The album opens (after a cough from Hatfield) with a pair of punky tracks, What A Life and Fleur de Lys.  Neither have an awful lot to recommend themselves.  Universal Heart-Beat opens with a drum solo but what follows is more of a pop song with a cloying chorus of "a heart that hurts is a heart that works".  Dumb Fun which follows is equally throwaway and you begin to despair.

Except from track five on the album improves dramatically.  Live On Tomorrow is a breezy acoustic strumalong with a lightness of touch which really suits her, with gorgeous acoustic solo thrown in.  Hatfield handles all the guitar work on this album and she really is in her element on the following track Dying Proof, which features ragged, lurching guitar work.  Bottles And Flowers and Outsider are in a similar, highly pleasing vein.

Hang Down From Heaven has echoes of Live On Tomorrow with the addition of a heavy chorus, and a similar sweet and rough experiment follows with My Darling.  One of the finest tracks is the penultimate Simplicity Is Beautiful, where she does a fine shoegaze impression, wth a gorgeously understated vocal under layers of guitar fuzz.

For a time in the mid nineties, Juliana Hatfield really had 'it'.  It's hard to argue with a lot of this material, quite wonderful in parts.

Album Review: The Lemonheads - Come On Feel The Lemonheads

Evan Dando and co were on a bit of a high after the success of their It’s A Shame About Ray album.  This follow up album, released in 1993, is a sprawling 15 track affair, far longer than the previous album.  At its best it’s full of rollicking, power-pop guitar tracks.  It opens with one of these, the ebullient The Great Big No, Dando’s perfectly drawled vocals over slightly rough guitar pop.  Interestingly the poppiest moment on the album, Into Your Arms, was actually written by The Hummingbirds.

 

Listening to this album now it feels very much like an early nineties timepiece.  It’s About Time is a glorious, sun-dappled strum, seemingly about Dando’s unconsummated relationship with Juliana Hatfield (who chimes in wonderfully on backing vocals).  Down About It has a great melody but it’s played at breakneck speed, almost too fast.  Seek out acoustic versions of this song which really allow it to breathe.

 

Speaking of songs breathing, Paid To Smile is a pretty mid-paced, vaguely country song.  They dial the country right up on Big Gay Heart, where Dando takes a tune and vocal right out of Nashville save for the gay-referencing lyrics which would never make it to the Grand Ole Opry.

 

Style, and it’s slowed-down cousin Rick James Style are two of the few mis-steps on the album, which is full of rocking melodies delivered in two minutes such as Rest Assured, Dawn Can’t Decide and You Can Take It With You.  Charming, slower tunes Being Around and Favourite T feature Dando’s heartfelt vocals with some admittedly cringe-y lyrics “if I was a booger, would you blow your nose?”.  Final track, the FIFTEEN minute The Jello Fund is a complete mess, with random studio noises battling with hard-rocking riffs.  It’s not really worth bothering with, the album would have been better without it.

 

The album deserves a relisten, at its best it’s as good as anything on its predecessor.

Concert Review: Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield at The Sugar Club - 30th November 2012

Review for www.meg.ie http://www.meg.ie/evan-dando-juliana-hatfield-at-the-sugar-club/

Album Review: Blake Babies - Earwig

Before Juliana Hatfield embarked on her solo career she sang in Boston-based Blake Babies. Their second album, released in 1989, was where she began to lay the ground work for her solo career and find her voice (yes, those girlish tones).

For those unfamiliar with Blake Babies/Juliana Hatfield, the album is a jangly, clean guitars and riffing, semi-rockers. Opener Cesspool is quite anthemic as the album goes, more riff-based than jangly. It's fairly atypical of the album, most tracks being midpaced jangly indie pop.

The quieter tracks are quite successful, sparser music allowing the songs to breathe on tracks like You Don't Give Up, showcasing John Strohm's subtle guitar skills. Evan Dando appears on this album adding bass and ropey backing vocals to jangle-rockers like Rain and Lament to great effect, while Strohm plays some great clean lead guitar parts in the midsection of Alright.

Even the cover of the Stooges' Loose turns out reasonably well, though Hatfield certainly doesn't inhabit the song like Iggy Pop does! The songs never outstay their welcome, most of them lasting no more than 3 minutes, and they would appeal to any fan of 80s indie pop.