To some extent, a person is an entity made up of the things they have experienced. The same could be said of a band, and few bands embody this idea as succinctly as Good Habits. The core songwriting duo of Bonnie Schwarz (cello, vocals) and Pete Shaw (accordion, synths) first began recording together while stranded in New Zealand during the Covid-19 pandemic. These initial forays into collaborative songwriting resulted first in a single – 2020’s Lullaby From the Rain, a song about sisterly love and separation – and then, a few months later, debut album Going For Broke. It was obvious from the start that travel, movement, the chaos of lives disrupted and the sheer joy of experience were the driving forces behind their freewheeling songs.
Back in Manchester, with an expanded lineup and a run of high-quality releases behind them, Good Habits are still alchemising their experience into a joyous blend of folk, pop, electronica and a kind of unfettered, jazz-inflected chamber music. 2024’s Quarter-Life, their third album, was their most expansive and ambitious to date, and featured guest appearances from folk luminary Angeline Morrison and composer/violinist Alex Garden. Better for Now sees them continue their journey outwards, exploring the extreme ends of their range of influences, from festival-ready, locked-in trance-folk to intimate acoustic balladry.
The album’s pre-released tracks showcase both ends of that spectrum. Ideas sees them at their most human, with Schwarz’s plucked cello laying the delicate groundwork for her fluttering vocals. But even within the confines of a single song there are intriguing contrasts and counterpoints. A sinuous accordion part from Shaw provides an unexpectedly solid structural element, while the vocals blossom like fireworks. The whole thing has a surprising and exalted energy. By contrast, Uetze has its roots in subtle, lightly pulsing electronics. Here Schwarz’s widescreen vocals flourish over a backdrop of minimal disco. Imagine ABBA, at their most existential, hotwiring a camper van, ram-raiding an accordion shop and legging it to a German trance festival.
But while those two songs might look very different, when you dissect their component parts, they actually grow close together, thanks to the overriding spirit of positivity that gives this album its energy. Both deal lyrically with the difficulties and joys of relationships, professional and romantic, and both come out firmly on the side of companionship and creativity. This is a recurring theme in Good Habits’ work, and they explore it from a range of angles. Reading Song recognises the importance of other people’s creative work as well as the need for the unique kind of experience that reading brings: a combination of downtime and intellectual engagement. It also touches on themes of nostalgia and family, while Schwarz’s vocals are at their most unadorned, allowing her regional accent to give shape and texture to her words. It advances on a loping bassline and Jen Walinetski’s crisp drumming, while Shaw’s accordion weaves in and out in jaunty accompaniment.
The album is not uniformly upbeat. Schwarz and Shaw realise to their credit that moments of exhilaration are more keenly felt when played off against difficult situations or crises. Better for Now’s more restrained moments provide the shadow against which the light is more clearly seen; they are also beautiful and moving songs in their own right. One such moment is Body of Mine, a song that manages to be both an intensely personal meditation on body image and a powerful and clever takedown of the social hierarchies that make body image problems so prevalent. Similarly, What Will Become of Me? neatly encompasses the stresses and contradictions of consumerism, the spectre of ecological collapse, and personal burnout, all in a three-minute folk-pop song that bounces along with admirable joie de vivre. Schwarz’s ability to say something politically meaningful while retaining a peppy brightness is something to behold. It’s this sort of juxtaposition that makes you want to go back for a second listen, just in case you’ve missed a lyrical barb amongst all the buoyant melodies. That the band manage to keep things this engaging over the course of nine songs is an admirable feat.
This tension between the serious and the fun manifests itself in different ways. The attention to detail in how the opening song, Different Eyes, builds musically and lyrically to its conclusion suggests a genuine love for the process of creating a song, but the words point to an eloquently expressed frustration and personal trauma. Keeping an Eye has similar themes, but musically it is full of flights of fancy and unexpected directions: restless percussion gives way to swooping cello, while Shaw’s accordion gives a rhythmic thrust to the verses. And here Schwarz wields her cello like an electric guitar, laying down a fiery, acrobatic solo.
The Point of No Return builds itself out of minimal ingredients, beginning with just vocals and a filigree of pizzicato cello, before the subtle electronic elements and drums take the song into lush, languid territory. A pair of wonderfully expressive – almost expressionistic – Shaw solos add another layer of interest. The final track, So Easy, brings the most notable change of pace. It is a slow, sweet song about love, shared affection and the pleasures of close physical and emotional attention. So Easy represents a state of absolute bliss in song form and perhaps the album’s most unambiguous statement of positivity. Delicate keys wander in and out of the lacy cello while Schwarz sings of her ‘serene abject wonder.’
‘Laid bare I am light/I see the sun in your hair,’ she sings later in the same song, and the idea of light is important here: light that banishes darkness, but also lightness of touch and fleetness of foot. Calm as this final song may seem, it all ties in neatly with that sense of movement and of travel, of a willingness to explore and widen their musical boundaries. This in turn fosters a combination of virtuosity and sheer vitality that makes Good Habits one of the most exciting bands on the British folk scene right now, as well as one of the most technically accomplished.
Better for Now (October 9th, 2026) Colour Plum Records