Bankrolled via the crowd-sourced funding site Pledgemusic,
There’s Always Another Girl shifts away from the sparely introspective
Peace & Love without returning to the lusher textures of
How to Walk Away. Appropriately enough for a record financed by fans,
There’s Always Another Girl hearkens back in its sound and spirit to
Juliana’s earliest indie recordings -- both solo and with the
Blake Babies -- with
Hatfield finding plenty of colors in nothing more than layers of guitars and voices accentuated by the occasional keyboard; yet this isn’t a retreat to the past, it’s a continuation of the excellent, mature work she’s done in the new millennium. This shares a strain of weathered weariness with
Peace & Love, particularly on the closing stretch, but it’s a richer record sonically and emotionally, possessing a variety of textures and feeling within
Hatfield’s recognizable signature. Perhaps Pledgemusic gives
There’s Always Another Girl an identifiable angle to the world at large -- it did generate a story in Salon around the week of its release -- and that runs the risk of suggesting the album is only for a devotees, or that
Hatfield is somewhat past her prime, when neither is true: she’s been in something of a career renaissance ever since the mid-2000s, creating sharp adult pop that’s accessible without being commercial, so if fan funding is what’s needed to keep her actively recording, this album is a great testament to its potential power. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine