Courtney Barnett – Creature of Habit (LP Vinyl) Vinyl Record

Review

It's 2026, and it's easier than ever to feel ungrounded—endless Internet doomscrolling at home, and the world on fire outside. Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett feels you. She's called her latest album, Creature of Habit, "a dichotomy—beauty versus the darkness," but the feeling she encapsulates is that wandering, unmoored sensation of being adrift amidst the madness. The album isn't as disorienting as that might sound; Barnett works to embrace the uncertainty lyrically and musically, creating a warm, intimate and mellow set of guitar songs that's among her best.

Creature of Habit is her first proper rock record since 2021's Things Take Time, Take Time. In the interim, she released a film score of ambient instrumental music, and musically, it's more akin to Time than her earliest lo-fi, Pavement-indebted releases. Her core sound remains familiar here: Barnett's spidery guitar lines, talk-sung vocals and gently bouncing bass. But Creature of Habit is a bit more polished, a fuller sound, possibly thanks to indie rock veteran producer John Congleton behind the boards.

Creature of Habit is best at its most stripped down. On "Mostly Patient," we hear just Barnett plucking her guitar and faint glimmer of a brushed cymbal as she sings to a friend, or to herself, or her listener: "When you're feelin' like a stone/ Skippin' on your own across the waves," and later, "Sometimes impatient/ But mostly patient/ I see you're waiting for things to change/ Outside it's raining, precipitating/ I know you're aching for brighter days." It's sad and sweet, a rainy-day reflection perfectly captured.

Mostly, though, Creature of Habit is catchy, mid-tempo guitar pop. She lays out gorgeous harmonies on the Waxahatchee duet "Site Unseen." And on "Mantis," she's looking for meaning in finding a praying mantis on her doorstep: "I am exercising how good it feels to be alive/ No surprises up my sleeve/ Everything is temporary." Everything that is, she means, but change itself.

— Justin Jacobs, Relix

Product Details

In the hands of Courtney Barnett, fragments of everyday life become rich and riveting. A deft lyricist and virtuosic guitarist with inimitable musicianship, Barnett first found critical acclaim with 2013’s The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas and broke into the mainstream in 2015 with her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. Garnering a coveted Best New Artist Grammy nomination and numerous other accolades, the album stands as a generational classic. Barnett followed her debut with 2017’s Lotta Sea Lice, an acclaimed collaborative record with Kurt Vile, and eschewed the vignettes of her early records on 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, her humid, political sophomore record. In 2021, she released Things Take Time, Take Time, a remarkable artistic step forward. On March 27th, 2026 Courtney will release her 4th studio album, Creature of Habit.