Revising her association with the Melbourne dolewave movement, Courtney Barnett is no longer slacker for the sake of sarcasm or aloofness, though one may argue things have been that way ever since Kurt Vile encouraged an Aussie-fied country drawl on 2017’s Lotta Sea Lice collaboration.
On Creature of Habit, Barnett is slacker because she’s spent the entire night awake, thinking. The album is for everybody who spends the odd night awake, thinking. Her red eyes derive from strainas much as they do tireless application.
Still she conveys all that rushed her mind during that night. Tremors, stillness, joy and fear. The album even livens up with an unfamiliar rage snubbed by Things Take Time, Take Time. Stay In Your Lane claims a guttural guitar rock foreign even to Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, far more killer, and why not? This is where pedantry gets bloody.
She just wants a little peace and quiet, so says One Thing At a Time, which is so rocky it’s disorienting, a subtle calamity pumping through its guitar parts. She wants to be as meditative as a praying mantis, which she manages on Mantis itself, alongside several other breezy, twee-like pop rock tunes that drift in and out of her hazy maze of thought; Wonder, on which her guitar melodies take curiosity from her; Site Unseen, which pulls from Waxahatchee’s southern comfort in a pileup of melody.
In this space, Courtney finds an optimism amid self-doubt, the bubbly hook of Sugar Plum saving the day with gleeful guitars wrapped in chorus, a sappy albeit happy chord progression, and dancing basses. In a pretty cool sequencing move, all that follows carries over the same disposition (Same / Great Advice), except for the mellower, wilting flower Another Beautiful Day, which ironically ponders the monotony of perennial bliss over stripped-back guitars.
Mostly Patient is even more stripped-back; a naked body with nothing for cover but dreamy guitar strokes as Courtney’s psychedelic voice calms. The song is the pinnacle of sitting and thinking, drifting with frog-eyed blinks, where every thought is weather, of “cloudy little heads”, of “raining, precipitating”.
Deep shit, right? Introspective, thought-provoking despite the vague minimalism of the themes. If Creature of Habit were a little more lyrically open, it’d be even more insightful, but the album is plenty insightful as is.
Best tracks – Stay In Your Lane – Sugar Plum.
Rating – 7 out of 10
