Courtney Barnett — Tell Me How You Really Feel ANALYSIS & REVIEW

Published 05/22/2018

There are certainly peaks and valleys here, and a lot of it had to do with the varying levels of melodic support and melodic energy. Overall, melody lines were nicely thoughtful, designed with interest in mind, and portrayed clear personalities that paired with the free and easy minimal textures in an important way. Emotion and intent were truly found in these exposed melodies, being a surprisingly dominant feature given the general soft-spoken nature of the actual vocals and most timbres.

However, when melody was paired with slow harmonic rhythm or using too much unrelated dissonance relative to the chord progression, as in the songs “Hopefulessness” and “Need a Little Time”, the music sunk just a bit into a nice groove that lacked real important direction or meaningful development. It was held afloat by a simplistic, grounded sound revolving around a strong electric guitar that was always providing interest in each individual riff and great attention to rhythmic motives and stylistic delivery.

The timbre may have only broken out its small, uniform shell in a couple of places, most notably in the heightened dynamic of “I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch” and the quieter, more spacious acoustics in “Sunday Roast”, with both of these little deviations being quite welcome and powerful, since the main down-to-earth textures created a pattern that was nice but not too sustainable, especially Barnett’s rather dreary vocal quality. Now, when melody was truly supported by connected instrumental countermelodies or a broad and zippy harmonic pattern, as in “Charity” and “Nameless, Faceless”, it produced a great few minutes of music, being some of the best songs I’ve heard this year and what pushed this album to a level higher than where it may seem to land at first glance.

For someone who obviously has an aura of comfortableness within simple guitar licks and vocal softness, Barnett sure showed up with several fearless decisions in featuring lighthearted melodies and letting one short harmonic pattern dictate the music, which was ultimately where emotional depth and connection was found. Despite the general introverted atmosphere and personality given off at the beginning of the work, Barnett found the most success in faster tempos, exposed melodies, and carefree guitar thrashing, also being surrounded by support from unique and lively chord progressions, with licks and power chords harking back to the rock n’ roll heyday with nice sprinkles of bIII and bVI.

Pairing that musical growth with the lyrical content about standing up for yourself and not apologizing for who you are made this quite a succinct and enjoyable all-around listen. There’s surely some greatness to be found here, even if the strengths weren’t consistently expounded upon. What was consistent, though, was cool riffs, electric guitar passion, and strong vocal lines to relate to. Mix in those moments of awesome melodic-harmonic connection, and it’s one of the best albums of the year.