Blake Babies, the Boston trio of vocalist/bassist Juliana Hatfield, guitarist/vocalist John Strohm, and drummer Freda Love, were one of those late '80s/early '90s bands who felt huge to what turned out be basically just a few people. But their first three albums, especially 1989's Earwig and 1990's Sunburn (and 1991's Rosy Jack World EP), were on constant rotation for a certain frustrated New Jersey teen: Hatfield's angsty lyrics and crystalline voice, the ramshackle instrumentation and perfect hooks; the reference to William Blake (via Allen Ginsberg, no less); the Dinosaur Jr. and Stooges covers, that they shaved their hair and cut their fingers in their videos and wrote a song about the life-saving effect of early Nirvana. They felt like your peers, and part of your underground, but were also clearly further along than you were.
Hatfield was the one doing most of the singing, and stood front and center in the press photos, so when she went solo in 1992 with Hey Babe, it made sense. Despite her blue-black hair on the cover, that record felt like a continuation of Blake Babies—it included a revved-up electric version of "Nirvana" and a song co-written with Strohm. The same goes for 1993's Become What You Are, which found Hatfield on guitar with bassist Dean Fisher and drummer Todd Philips as the Juliana Hatfield Three. The personnel was different, but it felt like part of a whole.
Now, after 13 solo albums (the last being 2013's Wild Animals), work with Some Girls, Minor Alps, and a briefly reunited Blake Babies, Hatfield has rejoined Fisher and Philips for Whatever, My Love, a record billed as "the first Juliana Hatfield Three album in over 21 years." Which, yeah, technically, it is. Fans at the time, though, saw Philips playing drums with Hatfield on the Hey Babe tour, and the distinction of "solo" versus full band didn't register. After all, that first solo album featured contributions from Philips (on most of the songs) along with contributions from Blake Babies regular Evan Dando, John Wesley Harding, Mike Watt, and others. What Become What You Are had, though, were Hatfield's biggest hits. It featured "Spin the Bottle" (also on the Reality Bites soundtrack) and "My Sister", and that's what the "getting the band back together" storyline is supposed to remind you of here. Because, outside of a lauded Elliott Smith cover last year, there haven't been any real hits since then.
It's worth mentioning, too, because Hatfield recorded that last solo album Wild Animals by herself: she played every instrument and produced it. She took the same solitary approach on 2010's coffee house collection, Peace & Love. Throughout her career, Hatfield's strongest work's emerged when she's clicked with her collaborators. She made magic with the Blake Babies. And she made magic with Fisher and Philips. So, for longtime fans, Whatever, My Love gives reason for optimism. And, of the album, Hatfield's said: "We haven’t totally reinvented the wheel or anything." Which is what you want to hear. She goes back to her earlier timeless sound, one that emerged from punk, and skips the saccharine singer-songwriter stuff.
Wrapped in very '90s cover art, Whatever opens with the breezy "Invisible", a track that starts almost in medias res and sounds like it could've easily been written during the older, prime period. And, you know, it was. I listened to Whatever a number of times before learning that my favorites—"Invisible", the excellent first single "If I Could", and "Now That I Have Found You"—were all songs she wrote in the mid-to-late-'90s. They were demos previously, and only given the full studio treatment now. They have the classic guitar tone, and a kind of effortlessness to the hooks. Another standout is "I'm Shy", a lite rocker that reminds me of the Blake Babies cover of "Loose", featuring straightforward, sharp lyrics about, well, being shy. These could've showed up on any of those older records and been standouts.
That effortlessness is harder to locate on the stiffer, less distinctive material. These are leaden, relatively tuneless songs like "Push Pin" (which, oddly, feels like a soft post-punk They Might Be Giants outtake), "Blame the Stylist", "Dog on a Chain", "I Don't Know What to Do With My Hands" (which does have a good synth-accompanied bridge), "Wood" (which sounds like wood), and "If Only We Were Dogs", a silly song that was somehow chosen to be a single (complete with unfortunate video). These tend to go nowhere and feel longer than they actually are. (The way the album's sequenced, you get you a bunch of the duds in a row, making me think an EP of the six stronger tracks would've made more sense. Especially because the catchy mid-tempo closer, "Parking Lots", has plenty of charm and smart wordplay.)
On a whole, Whatever is milder and gentler than the darker Become What You Are; that comes with age, I guess. But, all said, it does feel like a return. It's more propulsive than Hatfield's other recent work; it's more alive. You can hear this music existing in the world, making sense away from the studio, and connecting with people. It also sounds like the most fun she's had making a record in a while, and at times, reminds me why we hung Blake Babies posters on our walls when we were younger.
