The Australian singer-songwriter’s fourth album has the directness of a collection of demos. Barnett sounds characteristically laconic; she’s at her best when she lets her guitar take the lead.
When Courtney Barnett takes a solo in the last half of “Turning Green,” it evokes the two-note grubbiness of guitarist Pete Shelley’s work on the Buzzcocks’ “Boredom.” Barnett’s songs depend on moments when she trusts her instrument to become more than an extension of herself: Her guitar work functions as a pungent second voice, more demonstrative than the Daria-style talk-sing in which she’s most comfortable. Things Take Time, Take Time doesn’t have enough of these moments. Wedded to the percussion-and-singer-plus-accompanist format, Barnett sounds marooned. It’s her least interesting album.
Accompanied by Stella Mozgawa on percussion and additional instruments, Barnett offers 10 songs with the directness of demos. On “Oh the Night,” the simplicity of Mozgawa’s plonkety piano line complements Barnett’s insistence on back-to-basics, and also her tight budget for question marks: “It takes a little time for me to show how I really feel/Won’t you meet me somewhere in the middle.” It’s characteristic of Barnett that her line readings avoid any hint of pleading. On her debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, and the excellent follow-up Tell Me How You Really Feel, Barnett gave her angst the same attention she did origami, and she lingered on cityscapes as a means of toughening her anecdotes. “Watching all the movies/Drinking all the smoothies,” from “An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York),” remains a favorite. Hell, sometimes the city was so alive she stayed in her room to avoid it.
Things Take Time’s lead single, “Rae Street,” portends an ominous development: The storefronts and garbage trucks and other phenomena of urban life don’t excite this heir to Jonathan Richman like they once did. “Time is money/And money is no man’s friend,” she advises, but to make the lyric stick would require the kind of vocal commitment that her laconic sensibility regards with suspicion. Amiably blank gets you only so far. “If I Don't Hear From You Tonight" and “Sunfair Showdown” show Barnett’s strengths: riffs and toplines married to a wryness as chronic as a scowl. On others, the barren melodic landscapes expose the loss of bassist Bones Sloane and percussionist Dave Mudie, never mind second guitarist Dan Luscombe. The sparkling hook on “Here’s the Thing” calls for the kind of instrumental embellishment she and Mozgawa can’t provide alone. Things Take Time settles on a midtempo churn that isn’t up to the speed of Barnett’s wit; the slowest songs sprout weeds.
Still, I’m glad Barnett hasn’t written sequels to “Depreston” or “Walkin’ on Eggshells.” If Things Take Time, Take Time sounds tentative, it’s the tentativeness of a febrile imagination working out its next steps; she’ll be back. Besides, it works half the time. “Take It Day by Day” hits quivering bullseyes with each garnish: handclaps here, bass syncopation there. Then it shuts up in less than two minutes. Pithiness suits her, especially when offering unsolicited advice. We need artists who write lines like, “Don’t stick that knife in the toaster.” The album’s strongest songs evince an attitude best described in Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Bight”: awful but cheerful.
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