Courtney Barnett has been working on Creature of Habit for a long time. The Australian indie-rock songwriter's third studio album arrives March 27 via Mom+Pop, and the origin story of the lead single tells you something about how it was made: 'I tried three separate times over two years to track this song, and each time it either wasn't finished or didn't sound right and each time we had to start again.'
The song in question is 'Site Unseen,' a duet with Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. The fourth attempt worked. 'I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head,' Barnett explained, 'so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she'd be into singing it with me.' The result is a warm, melancholy piece of indie pop that sounds like both artists at their best, neither subsuming the other.
The story of four attempts matters because it's consistent with how Barnett has always worked: carefully, with a perfectionism that often manifests as waiting rather than rushing. Things Take Time, Take Time, her 2021 album, was named with that quality in mind. Creature of Habit continues it.
The tracklist is ten songs, including last year's 'Stay in Your Lane' (a lean, mordant piece of guitar pop that has held up extremely well since its release) and a set of new songs with names like 'Mantis,' 'Sugar Plum,' and 'Great Advice.' Barnett's track record suggests these titles are misdirections — her best songs always sound like they're about something else entirely.
The 'creature of habit' of the title could refer to the mechanics of repetitive behavior, or the ways personalities calcify over time, or both, or something Barnett has in mind that neither interpretation captures. She's good at titles that open into unexpected spaces. March 27.