Courtney Barnett – Creature Of Habit (Fiction) (13th Floor Album Review)
Heft in simplicity is how I’d describe Courtney Barnett’s fourth studio album, Creature of Habit. It’s weighty in its emotion, purity, and honesty, which qualities are given breathing space amidst (often) lean instrumentation and straightforward song structure.
It’s slacker, sometimes zany, and sometimes raucous. It’s probably not a statement piece, like the debutDouble EP : A Sea of Split Peas with its deadpan spoken word and terse witticism, but Creature of Habit gives the impression that it isn’t intended to be as much. The most lingering effect of this album is a contemplative mood. It’s a work that thrives in the light touch, even when it’s loud.
And the loudest track on the album is the first. Stay In Your Lane is anxious, fuzzy punk-rock, the kind performed in a garage with egg cartons glued to the walls. It’s loud, but at the same time, shy. It sounds like someone who wants to yell, but doesn’t want to overstep a boundary. The message, though, is no less potent than if it were spat from the mouth of Jello Biafra himself.
The understatement appears also in chord progressions and song structures. As I listened through Creature of Habit for the first time, I admittedly felt a little let down by the pervasiveness of “two-chord songs”. I found myself willing the songs to go more places harmonically–like songs from other post-punk outfits, such as The Smile. But I realised that Courtney Barnett is deliberately not math-rock. I think she wants to keep things bare-boned, as unpretentious as possible. Encumbered by overtly cerebral musical devices, I doubt this collection of songs would have connected as personally with me, would have retained its power to communicate so directly and quietly.
At the same time, I appreciated moments when the two-chord progression would unexpectedly unfold into something new. Sugar Plum is a great example, with an extended, poignant coda (poignancy always elevates me the most). One Thing At A Time is a journey through shifting moods evoked by changing chord harmony. Barnett’s use of chordal contrast is restrained, but very effective, and I think it could have been used more throughout the album.
Another thing I love about Courtney Barnett is that she loves a good jam. She’s not afraid of a guitar solo, even a long one. Perhaps she’s into Dinosaur Jr. I read that she grew up on Jimi Hendrix, too. But her guitar work is more Cobain-esque: dissonant, slacker, spare, but never sounding like Doomsday or a strangled cat, per se. She sounds like she has fun doing it.
Creature of Habit is, sonically, an interesting brew of textures. From wiry guitar riffs to fuzzed-out bass, seriously bendy chorus effects to percussion samples that sound like they were taken from Nintendo 64’s GoldenEye SoundFont. All of these, and more, combine to create what is, at times, a zany sensibility. Ensembles that wobble around, or at other times blast off into space. Best of all, though, it still sounds like a group of real people with mouths or amps stationed in front of real microphones in a real room.
Courtney Barnett has proven her staying power, that she’s more than a one-trick pony. Early on, I thought of her as a millennial beatnik. She’s not so enigmatic. Her songs are like conversations with a friend who you grew up with. In Creature of Habit, she wants to tell you what’s on her mind, right now. How she really feels. And maybe it’s a two-way conversation. In an interview*, Barnett explains how she’s tried in this album to explore the subconscious. Indeed, the closing track, Another Beautiful Day, leaves you like a dream, fading into the ambient sounds of morning, Courtney’s vocals echoing as they wane, everything dematerialising. Reborn every morning, still somehow getting older.
Luke Grbin
Creature of Habit is out now via Fiction Records
