{"id":9738,"date":"2026-03-26T09:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/courtney-barnetts-creature-of-habit-reviewed-deep-fresh-breaths-and-sweet-familiarity-on-the-melburnians-fourth-153815\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:35:07","slug":"courtney-barnetts-creature-of-habit-reviewed-deep-fresh-breaths-and-sweet-familiarity-on-the-melburnians-fourth-153815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/courtney-barnetts-creature-of-habit-reviewed-deep-fresh-breaths-and-sweet-familiarity-on-the-melburnians-fourth-153815\/","title":{"rendered":"Courtney Barnett\u2019s Creature Of Habit reviewed: deep, fresh breaths and sweet familiarity on the Melburnian\u2019s fourth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Indecisiveness, procrastination and lack of purpose; by her own admission, all have plagued Courtney Barnett for years. The twist being, of course, that in her music those very characteristics have become the stuff of uniquely candid songs that have propelled her into cultish stardom. She\u2019s picked unselfconsciously through her psyche over three albums, laying bare her imposter syndrome, depression and more in a manner far removed from the construction of anything like a persona. When change finally came knocking, though, as it tends to for anyone feeling stuck hard with a milestone birthday in sight, it did so loudly. Creature Of Habit<\/em>, her fourth album, is a document of Barnett\u2019s unsticking, through plain doing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Indecisiveness, procrastination and lack of purpose; by her own admission, all have plagued Courtney Barnett for years. The twist being, of course, that in her music those very characteristics have become the stuff of uniquely candid songs that have propelled her into cultish stardom. She\u2019s picked unselfconsciously through her psyche over three albums, laying bare her imposter syndrome, depression and more in a manner far removed from the construction of anything like a persona. When change finally came knocking, though, as it tends to for anyone feeling stuck hard with a milestone birthday in sight, it did so loudly. Creature Of Habit<\/em>, her fourth album, is a document of Barnett\u2019s unsticking, through plain doing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also an instantly engaging record born out of its author\u2019s collaborative curiosity, the deliberate avoidance of any pre-recording plan and a determination to embrace change in whatever form, while staring down the uncomfortable emotions that so often attend it. Early album sessions were recorded in Joshua Tree with co-producers Stella Mozgawa (who also drums throughout) and Marta Salogni. More studio time followed six months later in LA, where Barnett now lives, with Mozgawa and John Congleton.<\/p>\n

Half the set edges Barnett\u2019s songwriting into new terrain and realises her ideas in a fresh way, zinging with different sounds \u2013 \u201980s jangle pop, dreamy psychedelia and synth pop included \u2013 while avoiding any whiff of forced reinvention. While Creature Of Habit<\/em> signals that its maker is moving on both personally and creatively, it should also shift public perception. The \u201cslacker rock\u201d tag was always a little off \u2013 a misreading of Barnett\u2019s relaxed song forms, see-saw phrasing and casually self-enquiring lyrics as disaffection or negativity \u2013 but it\u2019s even less appropriate now.<\/p>\n

Change is announced in the opening slot with \u201cStay In Your Lane\u201d. From paralysis and despair (\u201cFeel like a fish on a hook\/I\u2019m crying like a child would<\/em>\u201d) Barnett wrings resolve (\u201cAnd now I\u2019m here I might as well just go through with it<\/em>\u201d), against the kind of choppy, high-energy backdrop with a blown-out low end that Chris Forsyth might enjoy. A short siren whoop, multi-tracked vocals and a sudden ending complete the bracing picture. \u201cOne Thing At A Time\u201d begins with the sun-glazed, loping charm that made Kurt Vile and Barnett such a natural pairing, then stretches out into Pond-like trippy languor before closing with two-and-a-half minutes of irresistibly gnarly shredding. \u201cOh, my god, I\u2019m ready for a change<\/em>,\u201d the guitarist repeats, fed up with her mind \u201calways working from the same old pattern<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

More unusual in their departure from form are \u201cSugar Plum\u201d and \u201cSame\u201d: the former (note the Cocteau Twins-ish title) lays insistently chiming, \u201980s-pop guitar atop an over-easy rock chug, while \u201cSame\u201d borrows from the moodier side of that decade, adding needling guitar, swirling synth and squirts of electronic noise to a Bananarama-ish melody. Barnett\u2019s skill of combining groovy skronk with sarcasm shows in \u201cGreat Advice\u201d: percussion is pushed to the fore, strings whine and the talk \u2013 \u201cAppreciate your great advice\/But I don\u2019t wanna do my hair all nice\/I like it this way<\/em>\u201d \u2013 comes with an eye roll.<\/p>\n

In between these newly exploratory songs sit the more familiar, freewheeling likes of \u201cMostly Patient\u201d, a twangling, melancholic charmer with a country-pop bent and \u201cMantis\u201d, which supplies the album\u2019s title and sees Barnett watching said insect on her door, \u201clooking for meaning or just any sign at all<\/em>\u201d. Kindred spirit Katie Crutchfield steps up for vocal harmonies on a burnished \u201cSite Unseen\u201d. Barnett exits on \u201cAnother Beautiful Day\u201d, a five-minutes-plus, philosophical acceptance of being \u201creborn, every morning\/Still somehow getting older<\/em>\u201d, expressed over a mesh of brightly ringing guitars, Wurlitzer and echoed vocals, tricked out with birdsong and bathed in a Californian warmth that\u2019s almost palpable.<\/p>\n

Barnett\u2019s USP is the singularly unagonised mapping of an interior life that gets in the way of her living out in the world, her consummate guitar work a major part of its soundtrack. In Creature Of Habit<\/em> that plays out rather differently \u2013 she\u2019s sharing the process of change as well as the sound of it, as if in real time. \u201cI think the reason I write is because I\u2019m trying to understand something,\u201d Barnett tells Uncut<\/em>, \u201ctrying to unlock some part of my brain that seems hidden from me. Each record feels like a document of that time, while also being a stepping stone into the next chapter.\u201d The rush of this album, then, lies in its capture of Barnett\u2019s gradual surfacing as a different creature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Courtney Barnett\u2019s Creature Of Habit reviewed: deep, fresh breaths and sweet familiarity on the Melburnian\u2019s fourth<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Indecisiveness, procrastination and lack of purpose; by her own admission, all have plagued Courtney Barnett for years. The twist being, of course, that in her music those very characteristics have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,5502,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album","category-courtney-barnett","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}