Partly inspired by a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of Milk! Records, the label she co-founded in 2012, Creature of Habit finds Barnett amid some major life changes. Atop Zach Dawes’ gritty bassline and Stella Mogzawa’s rollicking drums, opening track “Stay in Your Lane” lashes out at well-meaning advisors who think they know what’s best, even if its narrator is caught in a bout of self-sabotage. “Gotta get this off my chest / This never would have happened if I stayed in my lane / stayed the same way,” she sings, regretting having tried something new in the face of undesirable results. On the following “Wonder,” unbridled paranoia has never sounded so breezy, thanks to light-on-their-feet performances from Barnett, multi-instrumentalist Mogzawa, and bassist Andrew Sloane. Go-to indie producer John Congleton also adds to the levity with his crisp, airy mixing job.
“Site Unseen,” an early standout that features Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, scans as a conversation between two people who seem unsure if a move across the globe was the best choice for either of them. But embarking on this journey together bolsters their courage, and the union of Barnett’s and Crutchfield’s voices amplifies the song’s anxious but tender tenor. The pair sounds excellent together, Crutchfield’s filigreed reediness providing a complementary harmony to Barnett’s lower register. “Mantis,” arriving just after the halfway point, serves as the cover art inspiration and thesis statement. One of Barnett’s greatest strengths as a songwriter is how she connects introspection with external scenery, as we’ve heard on classics like “Depreston” and “Elevator Operator.” For “Mantis,” the titular insect is a reminder of “the magic of an extra ordinary day” (note the space between those two words) and how we can find solace in the mundane.
“Sugar Plum” plays like a supplementary counterpart to “Mantis,” and it’s the strongest lyrical showing for Barnett across the album’s ten cuts. “It’s so hard to break a habit / when it’s just so comfortable,” she sings, and she goes on to showcase her compelling mixture of wit, poignancy, and humor in lines like “You’re either drowning in the deepest sea / or drowning in the kitchen sink / Either way, it all feels like drowning.” She segues into the clever and catchy refrain soon thereafter, her keen sense of melody guiding her: “I’m in over my head / I’m over my head.” Removing that single preposition changes the meaning entirely and showcases Barnett’s linguistic prowess once more.
Creature of Habit is largely an album about how doubt can keep us contained, how we form habits as a way of achieving comfort, staving off fear, and ensuring bare-minimum survival, sometimes all at once. But when we create for ourselves a new habitat, such as departing Australia for Los Angeles, that shift can be jarring, and our behaviors are called into question when everything once moved mindlessly as various components of our daily routine. Ironically, Barnett treads well-worn ground in her exploration of these ideas. Nothing here feels unfamiliar; every song remains well within Barnett’s comfort zone of the jangly indie rock she has been making for over a decade. Seldom does she stray from the path we’ve come to expect of her, but that’s not necessarily to a fault. Creature of Habit itself reminds us that not all habits are bad. When you’re this good at what you do, there’s nothing wrong with continuing in that vein. As an astute songwriter, Courtney Barnett really has no need to doubt herself. [Mom+Pop/Fiction]
Grant Sharples is a writer, journalist and critic. His work has also appeared in Interview, Uproxx, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Ringer, NME, and other publications. He lives in Kansas City.
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