Juliana Hatfield - "Scratchers"

Photo by David Doobinin

It's always a good day when Boston alt-rock icon Juliana Hatfield releases new music, and yesterday was one of those days. Her latest single, "Scratchers," sees Hatfield firmly embracing her singer-songwriter/Adult Contemporary era, but it's still filled with plenty of fuzz and grit. The song feels like a natural progression from Hatfield's classic 90's songs, and is pretty much everything we'd want a new song from Hatfield to sound like in 2025. In fact, at times "Scratchers" sounds like it could be a lost b-side from one of her late 90's albums. Plus, this might be the best that her vocals have ever sounded. We can't say this about many of our favorites from the 80's and 90's, but Juliana Hatfield continues to release great music.

Juliana Hatfield says of her upcoming album:

“It was a difficult time for me when I started working on this album. I had just uprooted myself from the city apartment building where I’d been living for twenty years to a house in a more rural town two hours away where I knew no one when one of my best friends died (‘Ashes’), and then my dog died (‘Constant Companion’), then my mother was diagnosed with esophagus cancer (‘Scratchers’). I was pretty depressed for a solid year (‘Long Slow Nervous Breakdown’) and was lost and very lonely (‘Harmonizing With Myself’). I was thinking about fate and circumstance and about how I’d ended up where I was (‘Where Are You Now’).”

You can watch the video for "Scratchers" below. Lightning Might Strike is due out December 12 on American Laundromat Records, and is available for pre-order here. For more on Juliana Hatfield, check out the artist's website.