Tanya Donelly
Sleepwalk (4AD 2108)

I put on this EP recently and my new roommate asked who it was. "Tanya Donelly," I responded. After a pause, she posed the acidic question: "So, do you like Juliana Hatfield, too?"

Ouch! No, I don't! But yes, I suffer from incurable Tanya Donelly fandom, one of the symptoms of which is obliviousness to the uncoolness factor of her music. Donelly's day has come and gone, leaving her to a diminishing rank of collegiate spinsters and aging hipsters.

Yet one day, I think her songwriting will come to be appreciated as kind of legendary, not quite Maria McKee, but way better than Juliana Hatfield and Kristin Hersh (who both tend to get more props nowadays). The true geniuses of their time never get recognized on time.

That said, Sleepwalk is neither legendary nor genius, just a crop of good Tanya Donelly songs, no dizzying heights or staggering lows. If anything, it sounds sort of like VH1 music, sad to say. She's almost better off just playing acoustically; the generic production on these songs disguises her essential quirkiness.

"The Storm" (off Beautysleep) works subtly and grows on you with repeat listens; "After Your Party" is unusually countryish territory for Tanya; "Days of Grace" I couldn't tell you anything about even though I just listened to it; and "Last Rain" is basically a rewrite of "Silverfish."

I sure wish this were a lot more mind-blowing than it is. It's like if Picasso got a Jetta.

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Review by Julia Robert