PROMISE KEPT

One of the hardest things to write is a song that has no specific meaning but nonetheless conjures up powerful feelings or ideas. Bluntly themed, big-haired, Bon Jovi-like rock anthems are commonplace. But it takes someone of exceptional talent--R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Prince--to create a song that makes little rational sense but still rings true emotionally. We expect this from poets; we rarely get it from rockers.

On her new CD, Only Everything, singer-guitarist Juliana Hatfield moves from the forehead-slappingly obvious to the deftly oblique. On her last album, Become What You Are, she took swipes at easy targets like the grotesquely gorgeous Cindy Crawford set. This time, says Hatfield, "I wanted there to be more for people to sink their teeth into."

Her new songs are both more whimsical and more interesting. Dumb Fun, a vertiginous number with sporadic bass-guitar spasms, was composed by stringing together semi-random passages from a notebook of ideas Hatfield had been keeping for about six months. "Had a heart by accident," goes one line of the song. Another track, the idiosyncratic Fleur de Lys, is sung entirely in French.

While her meanings have grown more elusive, Hatfield's melodies--as well as her light, birdlike voice--have grown more assertive. One song, Universal Heart-Beat, puckishly combines R.-and-B. electric-piano tickles with grubby rock-guitar riffs. And the shimmering, lovely Simplicity Is Beautiful is the most moving song she has yet composed. Hatfield's earlier CDs showed promise but didn't fully deliver. The enjoyably ambiguous Only Everything sends a clear message that she's a true talent.