Recommended Tracks: “Right In Front Of Me,” “Patterns Of A Person,” “Belt Loop”
Similar Artists: Lizzy McAlpine, Lucy Ducas, The Favours
When Tiny Habits first appeared on the scene, they stood solidly in the 2020s revival folk sound. Now, years on from their debut album All For Something, the Boston trio have pushed into new ground in their latest project Keepers.
Members Maya Rae, Cinya Khan and Judah Mayowa use their sophomore album to challenge the expectations placed upon them following their debut by pushing into a full band- and rhythm-focused sound. Moving further from the lighter folk-pop conventions they began with, Keepers‘ 11 tracks balance a spirited sound and mature songwriting. Despite this shift, Tiny Habits still know their strengths, with each song dripping in stunning vocal harmonies that further emphasise the album’s playfulness.
Kicking off Keepers is the single “Love Ruins Everything.” Evidently wanting to establish the progression in style from their debut album, “Love Ruins Everything” is built on the rhythm from both its percussion and lyrics. Motown and soul influences are clear in the horns and keys that support a punchy drum kick and snare reminiscent of the work of Curtis Mayfield and Jean Knight. In the lyrics, there is a sense of pessimism with the trio explaining love as “when it’s over it was all for nothing / when it’s happening it’s that or nothing else.” Starting the song by describing the failings of love, the bridge reveals the true source of this pessimism with lines “Won’t open the door / I could lose everything.”
It’s this change that becomes a running theme across the album as each song slowly reveals the changing perspectives on love as you grow up.
The album’s first single, “Anything He Was,” is the closest Tiny Habits get to the sound of their debut album. Acting as a bridge for long-time listeners between the old and the new, “Anything He Was” is slow, steady and somber as the trio sings of a bittersweet love. Brushed drums ease us in with the opening line, “Practice run / You’re saving up speed for the real thing,” establishing the softly painful tone of the songwriting.
On an album where you want to dance all the time, “Anything He Was” reminds you how gifted Tiny Habits are as songwriters. The chorus’s “I know I can’t be anything he was to you” is simplistic yet powerful, supported by verses filled with poignant analogies and imagery. Such lines include “Dried up glue, he’s still on you” and “Waking up to an empty room after dreaming of you.” A surprising addition to this song are the backing vocals from The 1975’s Matty Healy in the chorus and second verse.
A return to the upbeat takes place in “Someone You Love,” with synths and an electric guitar leading the album into a traditional pop styling. Tiny Habits decree that they are “tired with changing” for a relationship they know won’t last. In the second verse, this sense of tiredness is emphasised with the lines, “Is this the way it is? Giving in for giving it up.”
Wanting to keep up with the pace of the instrumentation, the chorus is broken into two sections. with the first dedicated to longer lines, “Do you want me that way,” while the second skips across with “Quick fix / A small trick / To keep you in love.” The aforementioned decree is made clear in the change in the final verse as Tiny Habits leave the song with the repeating “I could be someone I love.”
“Right In Front Of Me” is a clear highlight of Keepers. While “Someone You Love” was filled with resolve, “Right In Front Of Me” dances between playfulness and nervousness. The instrumentation is able to conjure that playful and nervous feeling within you with the strong drum kick and bass line giving us more tension as a lead electric guitar tiptoes across the mix.
A song about wanting to dance with the object of an infatuation, a party scene is quickly set up with the line “Looking down, got the taste of vodka still in my mouth.” As the verses fall into one another, the energy builds with vocal layering. By the final chorus, the trio sounds like a full choir, but they’re singing in unison rather than harmony. This vocal choice keeps “Right In Front Of Me” grounded in the party setting rather than becoming larger than life.
In “Fragile, Too,” we see a return of the folk sensibilities that Tiny Habits established themselves with. Both an acoustic and lap guitar set a somber mood as the trio is fraught over relationships. Having known someone since childhood, the band fears that “know[ing] all my stories” isn’t enough and that “baby we’re solid but we’re fragile, too.” The song also highlights the live band through sound blending and ambiance that give “Fragile, Too” a brighter quality compared to the previous tracks.
This lightness is short-lived, however, as “Towel” kicks the rhythm into hyper-drive with a drum kit, keys and plucked guitar. A strength that Tiny Habits are not afraid to use is their striking imagery in their songwriting and the chorus’s “my towel is on the floor” is a great example of this.
The simple line conjures up easily accessible context for listeners, as they quickly understand the exhaustion of trying to tidy up a relationship that seems doomed to fail. Being set in such a homey environment, the line also establishes a sense of closeness with the song’s subject and further pushes the sense growing apart from someone. Continuing the theme of maturity, the song’s focus on someone with an “ego double in size” highlights the trio’s growing need for stability from those around them.
“Belt Loop” holds an uneasy distance sonically compared to the rest of Keepers. There is a clear 90s neo-soul influence with the keys, horns, bass and beat along with the harmonies taking clear reference from R&B artists such as Fugees and Coco Jones. This choice in style also makes sense for the lyrical content, with a flirtatious tone heavily associated with the musical style.
Wanting someone physically but knowing that they are not good for you is the order of the single, with the opening line “meet me in the back of the basement” immediately setting up a sense of guilt and shame. However, there is a love for the danger with the chorus’s “pull me in by the belt loop” and “crawling back to the front of my mind.”
The change in tonality and style in “Belt Loop” spotlights Tiny Habits’ adaptability as they move seamlessly between well-referenced but diverse genres without once losing pace or sounding inauthentic. The choice of “Patterns Of A Person” as the following track only pushes this talent into the limelight further with the stark contrast in tone and lyrical structure.
Something that Tiny Habits takes full advantage of is internal rhyming and alliteration within their verses. In “Pattern Of A Person”‘s second verse, we see this yet again as “s” sounds start each line with imperfect rhymes at the end of each. In the final line, both the alliteration and rhyming set up in the first half of the verse is used internally.
“Started his drive / Started to cry / I stopped believing / That maybe next time he’d stay instead of leaving”
The title track acts as an interlude before the last two songs close off of the album. Kept short at just under a minute, the ambient “Keepers” features the trio showing off their harmonising ability as chatter slowly evolves into the next track, “What Do We Do It For?”
There is a return to the pop stylings from the start of the album in “What Do We Do It For?” with keys, layered guitars and rolling drums. The song holds a slow but moving pace, just as most of the second half of Keepers, possibly meaning “What Do We Do It For?” was one of the first recorded for the album.
There are hints of this in the lyrics, as well, as the band tries to keep up with relationships between tour stops: “I’ve been sleeping in a hotel with your picture in the drawer.” The title of the song “What Do We Do It For?,” sung in the chorus, also holds a double meaning. Tiny Habits weighs whether “a new stamp on a passport” is worth more than a relationship, or if the relationship is worth more than “a restaurant I never thought I’d eat in.”
The song is a good choice as a pre-closer as the trio gives a final blend of their old and new sound before sending the listener out with “Lonely Is A Silent Song.”
Heavy reverb on harmonised vocals give us a haunting sound as Tiny Habits give one last chance for a love long dissolved. “Lonely Is A Silent Song” that the band tries to avoid, because “how can words be wrong?”. A much slower pace with some bowed strings gives the track a slight country tonality as the band aims to close Keepers on a somber note. With this choice of instrumentation and vocal mixing, this intention is easily achieved and Tiny Habits leave the audience pondering what pain is worth love.
While clear that they are forever influenced by endless musical genres and styles, Tiny Habit’s Keepers proves their prowess as songwriters more than anything. Within each song is a clear intention that elevates each line and surrounds listeners with a world of feeling. Musically, the band keeps their experimentation and flirtation with genres contained to single tracks, which does give some unnecessary contrast between tracks, but overall, doesn’t detract from the album as a whole.
Tiny Habits will be taking Keepers on the road this fall with shows across the US and Canada. Information regarding tickets can be found here.
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