Courtney Barnett’s first true album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, doesn’t disappoint. The 27-year-old Australian singer and guitarist is still coming down off the hype from her 2013 EP, but that hasn’t stopped her from carving out her niche in music with her unique songwriting abilities, rambling melodies and lyrics that paint perfectly what she’s trying to express.  
The opening track, entitled Elevator Operator, sets the tone for the album. The song is loose and a bit unfocused, but something about Barnett’s almost conversational tone draws the listener in. Somewhere behind the drifting guitars that insinuate that Barnett herself is about to slip away from the music, she tells the story of Oliver Paul who wakes up all stressed out over his computer and the thought of going bald, so he announces that he is not going in to work that day. Insanity ensues, as it normally does in Barnett’s tunes, and as the man plays hooky on the roof of a building, the people on the ground believe he is going to jump and urge him not to. But as Barnett and the story’s protagonist so thoughtfully point out, the people on the ground are just projecting their own feelings of self-hatred and he just wants to be left alone.
The elements in this song continue throughout the rest of the dreamy album, which switches from upbeat tidbits about people like Paul Oliver and friends who make the commitment to eat organic food, to slow songs about moving to the suburbs and self-doubt that even Barnett seems to get lost in. Her tone sometimes borders on bored, but with the stories she’s spilling, the listener is anything but.  
“I used to hate myself but now I think I’m all right,” Barnett howls in Small Poppies, the fourth track on the album, which is an apathetic 7 minute whammy that would make any musician from 1993 give a subtle nod of approval. The influence of this kind of attitude that was so often expressed in music from the 90s is evident. Barnett is nonchalant and uncertain and unafraid to express her feelings, but her melodies are driven and capturing. It’s the kind of stuff I can only hope I would have heard on MTV at 3 in the morning in the mid-90s. It’s the kind of stuff college kids feed off.   
With Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett takes on the role of storyteller first and foremost. It’s as if she’s catching up with us at lunch and recounting humorous second-hand stories while guitars and drums occasionally thrash behind her, only there to add to the suspense and her masterfully crafted anecdotes.
Overall, I would give this empathic, apathetic, interesting and moody album a solid A. The hour and five minutes that Barnett gives us with her newest creation just doesn’t seem like long enough. When the album ends, disappointment that there is no more sets in. That is until you play it again. And again.