The Julie Ruin, the latest project from Riot Grrrl trailblazer Kathleen Hanna, merges many of her many past lives in music: a dash of Bikini Kill's proto-feminist garage-punk, a pinch of Le Tigre's dance-pop celebration, and a dose of the bedroom-project introspection that characterized the singer's first record under the Julie Ruin moniker in the '90s.
When Hanna resurrected the Julie Ruin a few years ago as a co-ed band after nearly a decade away from recording, its comeback album "Run Fast" presented her most ambitious music yet. The title of "Hit Reset" (Hardly Art) could be read as a tongue-in-cheek admission of "more of the same," but Hanna has actually upped the ante. In many ways, this is the singer's most personal and musically diverse album: The harrowing "Be Nice" runs into the girl-group pop harmonies of the break-up wish "Rather Not," "Let Me Go" blends new-wave keyboard and handclaps with a plaintive plea, "Mr. So and So" eviscerates a fake feminist over a disco bass line, and "Time is Up" evokes the sparse cutting-edge funk of '80s no-wavers ESG.
Double edges permeate the songs: "Planet You" sounds celebratory even as it skewers a narcissist, and the sassy wordless vocals on the thumping "I Decide" run counter to Hanna's declaration that "I belong to the wolves that drug me in their mouths just like a baby." Most telling of all, the sharp-tongued Hanna has never sounded more vulnerable than she does on the piano ballad "Calverton." It's a redemption song delivered in a sweetly forlorn voice. Raise your hand if you saw that one coming.
