THE LEG UP / Stephen M. Deusner

ALT-ROCK MARATHONERS

Your weekly leg up on upcoming new releases: Juliana Hatfield, The New Year, Mercury Rev..

Three long-running alt- acts return from years in the wilderness, either reinvigorated or simply to reclaim lost ground. I can’t hear them outside of the context of their larger careers, but if there are any newcomers out there, let me know how these sound completely new, will ya?

Juliana Hatfield: How to Walk Away (Ye Olde Records, August 19)

A few weeks ago I picked up Hatfield’s 1994 break-out album Become What You Are in the dollar bin of the sketchy used CD store down the street. Listening to songs like “My Sister” and “Mabel” I was a bit surprised by how immature it sounded: the clumsy rhythms of her lines, the easy sentiments, the barely invested singing, the simplistic arrangements. It sounded like high school poetry in the worst way, which made it strangely compelling, as if she had bypassed all the usual music-biz checkpoints and plunked these songs right on my desk. Fifteen years later—by very stark contrast—How to Walk Away is studiously adult, which is not quite as surprising as the mere fact that she has stuck around for so long. Launching her own label and taking the reins of her career, Hatfield has been going AOR gracefully over the past few years, which suits her better than early 90s alternative ever did. Producer Andy Chase of Ivy streamlines these songs with a careful, uncluttered sound, as Hatfield voices spectacularly grown-up disappointments about love, life, and music.

On repeat: “This Lonely Love”

The New Year: The New Year (Touch and Go, September 9)

Four years doesn’t feel like a long time, but in the indie-rock world, it can be an eternity. Think of all the bands that have come and gone since 2004, when the New Year released their second album, The End Is Near. Many bands might seem old hat with that sort of interval, but the Kadane brothers have been refining their signature sound—slow-moving indie-rock with delicate vocals, mordant observations, and shimmery guitars—for nearly two decades now. It has yet to sound dated. The New Year, their third album, begins with a slow, slow fade-in to Folios, then transitions into “The Company I Can Get,” another epic in miniature: “I need all the company I can get / even that redneck in the red Corvette,” sings Matt Kadane as the guitar lends his self-deprecation a certain splendor. Therein lies the contradiction that keeps the New Year compelling after so many years: As down on himself as Kadane always sounds, the band (with Steve Albini again producing) always lift him up… a least a little bit.

On repeat: “The Door Opens”

Mercury Rev: Snowflake Midnight (Yep Roc, September 30)

Continuing the band’s migration away from noisy to ethereal—which is neither as egregious as detractors declare nor as righteous as the agonistes claim—Snowflake Midnight (Mercury Rev’s seventh album and first in three years) alights in the same Casio forest that swallowed Grandaddy a few years ago. Synth bleeps and programmed motorik beats replace the baroque orchestrations of The Secret Migration and All Is Dream, but the band keep the music simultaneously dense yet airy, occasionally reaching for majestic (“Senses on Fire”) but often settling for something just shy. John Donahue’s lyrics remain determinedly soft-focus and sentimental, and his fascination with beautiful butterflies and vulnerable snowflakes often sound inspired by a schoolgirl’s notebook cover circa 1982. Snowflake Midnight sounds a little dippy at times, but Mercury Rev sounds genuinely reinvigorated, emerging from their cocoon once again as the American Sigur Ros.

On repeat: “Senses on Fire”

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.