· jclacking · details
Hatfield’s relentless output is given some inventive production, and I have to pause to carefully listen. There’s a lot to unpack, sonically and lyrically, and it refuses to fade into the background.
The source material is brilliant, but the interpretations are so uneven that it’s more like “Juliana Hatfield’s Wax Museum of Songs by The Police”.
A bold performance from Katie Crutchfield, who bares her heart and rips her chords out in a cathartic explosion that eventually winds down into a somber mood.
She once wrote a song over text message with Rachel Maddow, a micro-story that actually provides deep insight into this adventurous Canadian with an effortlessly capable voice and a finely honed instinct for finding the beating heart of a song.
Pain, desperation, a desperate will to hang in there, and an obsession with noticing the small things in life are common themes in Eels’ musical career, and they remain present here to comfort those in need of a song to help them through.
lacking.org