Tell Me How You Really Feel

Barnett's sophomore effort is a striking manifestation of gnawing anxieties, both internal and external; it may lack some of the instant affability of 2015's Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, but that's by design.

Barnett isn’t necessarily trying to reinvent rock with her songwriting. Instead, she strives to reveal something about herself within the context of relatively straight-up verse-chorus songs. Her playing is rarely flashy, but it is devastatingly efficient, a procession of riffs, fills and sculpted feedback that stamps her as a--here’s that word again--modest master of rock guitar.

It's full of incessantly catchy guitar riffs; a keen, driving rhythm section; and the unparalleled witty lyrics with which Barnett made her name. But it also bursts with more contradictions and a wider variety of personal intimacies than ever before. [Mar - May 2018, p.50]

Lyrically, Barnett feels more accessible this time around, letting us share her anxiety when it comes to daily threats like toxic masculinity (“Nameless, Faceless”) and even scaling back the syllables (again on “Charity”) to simply reassure us that we’re not alone.

After last year’s uninhabited Kurt Vile collaboration, she has a second album called Tell Me How You Really Feel that restores confidence in her tunes and the way her guitar lines snake through them. ... Settle into Tell Me’s crinkled smarts and Barnett remains as observant as Sometimes demonstrated.

The performances are muscular and attention-grabbing, and the melodies built around her distress take new and zestful contours.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most inward-looking album but also one that pulls back to engage with bigger political and cultural conversations more directly than we’re used to from her.

After the cheap--but definitely magical--thrills of her debut, this is a slow-burning triumph.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is a more mature record, and lyrically the most direct and honest Courtney has been to date.

Modest masterpiece of an album.

As much as finding a neat conclusion might lighten that mental load, Barnett has none to offer here. All she can do is show her workings, but leave the problems unanswered.

At its heart, Tell Me How You Really Feel offers a sense of encouragement, finding reassurance in transience and seeking out a little beauty amidst chaos and turmoil.

Despite the gentle forays into new styles, the universally relatable stories are still well and present, with enough morbid humour, intricately drawn character studies and down-to-earth wisdom to keep you coming back again and again.

Nearly every song on the new Courtney Barnett album has something to recommend it--a familiar melody that takes distinctive turns, a lyric that grows deeper with each listening, strong backup from a band led by Barnett’s rough-hewn guitar riffs.

Clever turns of phrase and quirky observations still permeate Barnett's writing, and there are still jangly, toe-tapping jams like "Need a Little Time" and "City Looks Pretty," but there are also darker forces at work.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is a wonderfully curated record, which manages to be both cynical and whimsical at the same time. The depth of musical ambition and of poetic expression deserve a suitably large audience’s attention.

While the songs here lack the scuzzy charm of her debut, Tell Me How You Really Feel is a weightier, more direct record.

In her new songs, she sets aside her sly character studies and minutely observed details for direct declarations and confrontations. They’re underlined by music that expands on all of her guitar-band idioms: growing punkier, more psychedelic, dronier and noisier as the songs demand.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is Courtney Barnett at her angriest and most vulnerable, but being a drinker of details means she can also blow the beauty of life’s little things up to full-size.

A much stronger set of songs. Her debut album's primary coloured backdrop having been swapped out for a richer, more nuanced palette. [Jul 2018, p.119]

It feels as if she now trusts the power of her music to imbue even cliche with emotional power. [Jun 2018, p.29]

An album that's warm, honest, awash with tuneage, never corny, and really rather marvellous. [Jun 2018, p.95]

The album could have benefited from a further exploration into Barnette’s flirtation with punk and hard rock riffs. Nonetheless, the album still manages to improve on the song structure of the first and show a more mature side of Courtney Barnett and some of her best instrumentals yet.

It’s complicated. There are no punchlines. In these songs of existential despair, a change in perspective is its own kind of revelation, as is Barnett finding the few good words to describe it.

Tell Me How You Really Feel might be the culmination of her stylistic development. Her laconic vocals and easy groove (sometimes offset by angry guitars) open the way for both her wit and unexpected intensity.

The album isn't an album of a moments, it's a collection that sustains a mood. A mood that's ragged and slack, but too dulled to charm.