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No longer an indie-rock ingenue, Juliana Hatfield now makes smart guitar pop—but she
hasn’t lost her edge. Sweet melodies and mild-mannered vocals aside, her songs offer an unsparing
tour through relationship hell, chronicling the ways lovers mistreat each other, and themselves.
“Get in Line” finds Hatfield trying to cure the pain of lost love with a scorching guitar solo. She
plays the villain on “Tomorrow Never Comes,” sighing “In time, you might forgive me” to delicate
strains of violin. Hatfield brings urgency to her struggles with maturity on “Dirty Dog,” while
“It Should’ve Been You” sets self-loathing to a toe-tapping beat. In Exile Deo will make
listeners feel better about their own problems.
