Juliana Hatfield

Few people can strike a minor chord with as much sincerity as Juliana Hatfield. How To Walk Away finds Hatfield older, wiser and sadder than ever before. Now in her early 40s, Juliana’s voice sounds almost the same as it did when she was with the Blake Babies; it still retains that little-girl-lost quality that so endeared her to fans. In the ’90s, the singer-songwriter mourned doomed baby birds. Fifteen years later, she’s mourning doomed relationships. Take song titles "Just Lust” and "So Alone” and you already get the point. The lyrics are sad, funny, wistful and sometimes all of the above (from "My Baby…”: "He used to look in my eyes and talk to me/But now we just have sex and watch TV”). This could almost be a concept album on dead and dying relationships. Thankfully, the subject matter never gets stale because the melodies are unfailingly lovely and Hatfield’s voice is heartrending. Anti-love songs have never sounded so sweet.