Erez Zobary, Healthy Habits!

Is it just me, or is self-care starting to feel like just another thing to cross off your to-do list? Did you meditate today? Write a journal entry?? Go on your stupid little daily walk??? On Healthy Habits! Toronto-based singer-songwriter Erez Zobary also feels pretty frustrated with managing everything we’re supposed to do to maintain good health. She’s out here balancing adult responsibilities, her music career, and relationships—who has time for anything else? On “To-Do,” you hear Zobary sing the EP’s most relatable line, “On my to-do list today, I had a breakdown.” 

Zobary has determination, though. She’s committed to looking on the bright side and finding the places and people that bring her peace. “No, don’t freak out,” she recites on “Stuck!,” a track where she also pauses comparing her life to that of her friends and celebrates her own achievements, singing, “At least I got myself a standing desk.” On the sweet and soulful ballad “Meant To Be,” Zobary snuggles under the covers with her love, safe from her obligations and enjoying a quiet moment.

But for the majority of these songs, Zobary kicks off the covers and faces the world. The exclamation mark in the EP’s title perfectly matches its exuberant mood as Zobary pushes through her doubts and worries with incredible enthusiasm. Healthy Habits! is a lively R&B and piano-pop record, and listening to Zobary’s dynamic voice is just what the doctor ordered to get you out of your funk. The rolling and buoyant melody of “Stuck!” matches the hectic pace of a busy day or a frenzied mind, and the title track has the same carefree swing as somebody who has thrown up their hands and decided to just go with the flow. 

After all, all you can do is try your best and, as Zobary says in the title track, “Breathe in and out.”