KRISTIN HERSH
Sunny Border Blue
4AD
THE BLAKE BABIES
God Bless The Blake Babies
Zoe Records
· Kristin Hersh and Juliana Hatfield aim at their early ’90s glory days.
Calling all 1980s college rockers, the impossible has happened: You’ve just gone retro.
Juliana Hatfield’s musical career hit a snag recently with the unimpressive Bed and unbelievable double opus Beautiful Creature/Total System Failure. A decade after calling it quits, the time seemed right to reform The Blake Babies. Recorded in 10 days and featuring guest spots from the likes of Evan Dando and Jake Smith, God Bless The Blake Babies continues right where the Blake Babies left off, albeit with increased musical ability and recording experience.
Unfortunately for The Blake Babies, their brand of unassuming folky-pop songcraft has not aged well over the past decade, having been attempted and improved by countless others. Of the 12 songs, only "Brain Damage," co-written by Dando and Ben Lee, and largely performed by Dando himself, is remotely interesting, making one wish for long-overdue new material from The Lemonheads man instead.
Kristin Hersh follows up last year’s sleepy Sky Motel with Sunny Border Blue, a long-needed shot of adrenaline to the ex-Throwing Muses braintrust’s canon. Musically, Hersh plays with computerized beats and looped guitars, while lyrically she heads straight for the jugular. "37 Hours" derides a control freak for "using fucked up military time," and "Listerine" berates her old Muses bandmates for abandoning her "one by one." Far more interesting than the Blake Babies’ tired Birkenstock retreads, Sunny Border Blue shows Hersh grappling with the threads of keeping current, and finding success more often than not.
BLAKE BABIES: 2/5
KRISTIN HERSH: 3/5
MARK HAMILTON
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