The Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist returns after a five-year gap to bring more of her witty, indie-country-rock, but with a bittersweet flavour, and an emotionally resonant record that explores change and the central question: how to get out of your own way so you can truly feel your life. Written in the wake of a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of her long-running label Milk! Records which she founded with ex-partner Jen Cloher. So this album sees Barnett grappling with changes that put the future of both her life and career in question. That said she still displays a magnetic talent for easy, flowing, catchy melodies, and engaging, candid wordplay, from the opener Stay In Your Lane (“Feels like I'm going backwards/ Each day I preach my practice”) Wonder, and partictularly Site Unseen, featuring backing vocals from Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield), reflecting and open to change, a track that took several attempts to to get right: “Letting go of everything that might have been/And if we like it here/We’ll stay another year … Let’s figure out the rest another day.” Other highlights include the wonderfully catchy and candid One Thing At A Time (“Don't get why it's so hard to find / Some peace and quiet swimming in my mind / And oh my God, I'm ready for a change. / Overanalyse my dreams / And pick apart the seams / Always working from the same old pattern”) the smooth indie rock of Mantis, inspired by discovering on of these insects in her kitichen, and one she describes as the “microcosmic centerpiece of this album, it embodies the message and meaning of every track. It’s a song about searching, and it helped me find my way through the the album” - as shown the lyrics: “Beneath this creature of habit / Teach me the magic / Of an extra ordinary day.” Others include the talky, riff wonky, gently ironic Great Advice: “Appreciate your great advice, and I / Need your opinion like a needle in the eye / I like it this way, I like it this way,” and the closer Another Beautiful Day, in which she reflects about how she’s “Reborn every morning / Still somehow getting older / Melting, wish we'd thought to bring / Something to bottle up this moment.” Despite difficult adjustment then, Barnett is back at her honest, easy-flowing best. Out on Mom + Pop / Fiction Records.
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