Courtney Barnett – “City Looks Pretty”

Pooneh Ghana

Courtney Barnett – “City Looks Pretty”

Pooneh Ghana

Next month, the great Courtney Barnett returns with the new LP Tell Me How You Really Feel, which is somehow only her second proper solo album. Barnett has already shared the early tracks “Nameless, Faceless” and “Need A Little Time,” both of which are relatively chill takes on her erudite, guitar-tangled indie rock. Today, Barnett has shared “City Looks Pretty,” a third song from the LP, and it’s a little more revved-up than the two that preceded it.

“City Looks Pretty” starts out as a relatively fired-up rocker before morphing mid-song into a lazy front-porch jam. It’s a little more diffuse and contemplative than the punchy, hooky power-pop joints that she was writing on Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. But it shows that Barnett can open things up and get expansive and contemplative without losing her focus and drifting off into the ether.

As ever, Barnett’s lyrics are the sorts of things that stick with you. “City Looks Pretty” is about losing yourself in an urban landscape, the type of place where “friends treat you like a stranger, and / Strangers treat you like their best friend, oh well.” Check it out below.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is out 5/18 on Mom + Pop/Marathon/Milk! Records. “City Looks Pretty” will be available on a Record Store Day 12″ single on Saturday, alongside the as-yet-unheard album track “Sunday Roast.”

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