Courtney Barnett has had a lot of changes to process lately. Naturally, they ended up in her songs.
Barnett broke through in the early 2010s with a loose, guitar-driven sound and sharply observed lyrics, earning a Grammy nomination for best new artist in 2016. Around 2022, she began shifting her home base from Melbourne to Los Angeles after struggling with creative burnout. A year later, she closed Milk! Records, the label she cofounded in 2012.
Those upheavals run through Barnett’s fourth studio album, “Creature of Habit,” released in March. The record marks a sharp departure from the softer, quieter sound of her previous album, 2021’s “Things Take Time, Take Time,” instead leaning into more rhythm-forward, emotionally driven tracks that retain the wit and introspection that have long defined her music.
Expect Barnett to perform songs from “Creature of Habit” during her three-night stint at the Fillmore in San Francisco on Wednesday-Friday, Aug. 26-28.