- Tell Me How You Really Feel is the highly anticipated sophomore album by Australian-rock wunderkind, Courtney Barnett. It arrives after the cataclysmic impact of her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett became a global phenomenon and with just cause. Fomenting a strong reputation for her worldly lyrics and catchy rock-tunes, Barnett released one of the most celebrated debut albums in recent history, but the question is, how do you follow that up?
Many writers endure tribulations writing their second novels (Pulitzer Prize winning author, Michael Chabon famously threw away his before starting a new one about a writer who had trouble with their second novel). Maybe there could be a temptation to lean towards grandiosity, but Barnett has opted for the obverse. Tell Me How You Really Feel is simpler than its predecessor. The lyrics are more laconic, the songs are shorter and more to the point, but the music is by and large the same. Guitars are omnipresent but they never feel forced. The work of Dan Luscombe (also the guitarist of The Drones) and Barnett herself (who also played lead guitar in Jen Cloher’s band) is stellar. The distinctive, atonal sounds in City Looks Pretty and I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch wouldn’t seem out of place coming out of Nel Cline’s amp.
Lauded for her obvious penchant for writing insightful lyrics, Barnett has dialled back the verbosity on this album. A line from City Looks Pretty, “Heavenly prose ain’t enough good to fill that hole” may provide some insight into Barnett’s current outlook on lyrics. Although Barnett has sacrificed some quantity, it hasn’t been at the expense of quality. Her knack for detail pervades the album with lines like, “I spend a lot of my time doing a whole lot of nothing” and “indecision rots like a bag of last week’s meat” standing out on first listen. In between the expected Nirvana-eque power chord rockers, some of the best songs on the album are slower-paced, like standout tracks Need A Little Time and Sunday Roast. Particularly the latter, which closes the album with a melancholic tune that leaves you more hopeful than despondent and more grateful than excited that there is a new Courtney Barnett album.
- Jonathan Cloumassis.