Good Habits are Bonnie Schwarz (cello, vocals) and Pete Shaw (accordion) and this is a most excellent quirky folk pop album. I just wish I’d played it earlier, as it came out some time ago.
Most newsworthy song is a cover of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” with the famed synthesiser replaced by accordion; “broken folk experimenters” Lunatraktors added drums and vocals, sung by someone with lungs the size of a mammoth (possibly Shaw as nobody else is credited). It’s a monster cover but I think it sits uneasily in the quirky folk, led by Schwarz’s rather gentle vocals.
They also cover “Friday I’m in Love” (The Cure), but that is more in keeping.
“Itchy Feet” opens and is as lively as the titular feet presumably are. “Sunday” is perhaps a Led Zep song that Robert Plant left in a service station and Quarter-Life found over coffee and a bap: it opens with the cello dropping a “Kashmir”-style riff and becomes one of those bluesy, slow, big-beat songs that Zep perfected.
Then comes “Baba O’Riley”, which one could play loud on repeat as it’s a great song but I’m ignoring it for the sake of rest of the album.
“The Earth Has Moved” is next and it’s great; an electronic band could replace the accordion and cello with the world’s best synth and still come up short on a song where there’s an indie feel to the fore and folk accordion twiddling behind.
“Space Buns / Hiccups” is as trad as you want (as is the later “Vinegar”) – a dance piece – while “Does Anybody” is a quirky pop tune (shades of Gotye’s “Used to Know”).
It’s a gentle album for fans of folk trad and alt. See goodhabitsband.bandcamp.com/album/quarter-life.
JMC
