Peace & Love

Starkly contrasting with the assured studiocraft of How to Walk Away, Peace & Love presents Juliana Hatfield unadorned. Largely acoustic and spare -- the piano of ôWhy CanÆt We Love Each Otherö and insistent rhythms of ôLetÆs Go Homeö standing out all the more in this context -- Peace & Love has the feeling of a confessional, a suspicion reinforced by the existence of songs like ôEvanö that feel like a letter to a longtime friend. Autobiography has always been an element of HatfieldÆs work, something she made plain in her memoir and accompanying blog, but viewing this album as a strict journal does a disservice to JulianaÆs writing, whether itÆs her gift for a sly turn of lyrical phrase or how her melodies rise and fall with a natural grace. Viewing Peace & Love as merely a collection of emotional bloodletting also obscures how it flows as a proper old-fashioned album, shifting tones subtly over its 12 songs, with the instrumental ôUnsungö arriving at precisely the right moment and ending on a suitably ambiguous, haunting note with ôDear Anonymous.ö Peace & Love remains something of a mood piece -- itÆs ruminative, not rousing, never succumbing to navel-gazing but not suited for large crowds -- which does mean it doesnÆt quite have the undeniable power of How to Walk Away, but when a softly melancholy mood strikes, this provides comforting consolation. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide