Search - Juliana Hatfield :: Only Everything

A bit uninspired, but still a good record.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 07/25/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Juliana Hatfield's last album for a major record label, "Only Everything" (there was one more planned, the legendary "God's Foot", but Atlantic refused to release it) is a bit of a mixed bag. Released 18 months after the brilliant "Become What You Are", the album finds Hatfield pushing in a number of different directions, some successful, some otherwise. The results are never bad per se (well, for the most part), but quite a bit of it is not particularly inspired.



Mind you, the album starts off pretty well-- the first three songs are among the best on the record, from the immediacy of "What a Life", an upbeat, driven piece with a nice stream-of-consciouness lyric and a wall of guitars, the odd "Fleur de Lys" with its groove bass line and layers of thrashy guitars over which Hatfield sings in French, and the album's moderately successful single, "Universal Heart-beat". Opening up with a bizarre distorted guitar and frantic guitar intro, it moves into a Wurlitzer piano line nimbly performed by Hatfield for the verses with a downright pounding chorus and is one of the more unique songs in her catalog. Its odd keys sound however guaranteed it'd never be more than a moderate hit.



But after that, the album rarely rises above mediocrity-- be it weak songwriting ("Dumb Fun", with admittedly stellar guitar playing), poor conception ("OK OK"), or just somewhat lifelessness ("Simplicity is Beautiful"). Again, none of it is particularly bad, but not much of it is particularly good. And while at least one piece is unnervingly brilliant and inspired ("My Darling"), the batting average is a lot lower than it was on "Become What You Are".



Hatfield's career would take a dramatic turn after this-- she got into a well publicized arguement wiht her label over the followup to this ("God's Foot") which led to her breaking from major labels and (probably not coincidentally) an improvement in the quality of her music. This is a decent record, but she'd done a lot better."