8/10
Set against a backdrop of Beyonce’s COWBOY CARTER and Chappell Roan’s “The Giver,” Boygenius’ Julien Baker and Torres’ Mackenzie Scott have followed the recent trend of extending their traditionally non-country music into the genre.
Both raised in the South and on country music, Baker and Torres—two openly gay musicians—grew up with a genre that never felt entirely welcoming. Roughly five years in the making, Send a Prayer My Way offers a refreshed take on country music, filtered through their own lens and experience.
Fiddles, ample guitar work, and slower tempos give the album an intimate feel, furnished with a Southern twist. In addition to a decidedly Americana sound, the album distinguishes itself by incorporating motifs of addiction and queer love into its lyrics.
On the album’s opener, “Dirt,” stripped-down acoustics draw attention to Baker’s voice as she sings of hopelessness and despair. “Spend your whole life getting clean / Just to wind up in the dirt,” Baker sings, possibly alluding to her struggle with substance abuse
The fifth and last-released single, “Bottom of a Bottle,” provides the album with additional despondence. Baker and Torres sing about struggling to maintain composure and faith: “I lost my nerve / So I searched the corner bar / I lost my faith / So I went wishing on a Lone Star.” Accompanied by woeful fiddle-playing, the track is delicate but somewhat forgettable, blending into the rest of the album despite its thoughtful arrangement.
One of the album’s slight deviations from folksy Americana, “Off the Wagon” begins with acoustics indistinguishable from songs on the record but progresses to a more grungier and intense sound with striking electric guitar notes. It provides some much-needed variety in an otherwise relaxed tracklist.
While several songs cover misery and anguish, roughly half incorporate romantic tropes. The third track, “Sugar in the Tank, is sonically buoyant and lyrically persistent, with just the perfect amount of banjo to provide the song with an optimistic edge. The song describes the experience of loving someone unequivocally, whether “tied up on the train tracks” or “swimming upstream in a flash flood.” “Sugar in the tank,” which, historically, has been used to refer to concealed homosexuality, is used with confidence by the duo, reinforcing an album theme of self-assurance in identity.
The album’s ninth track, “Tuesday,” describes the narrator being in love with a girl named Tuesday, living in a place where religion complicates queer love. “Tuesday melted right down / Asked me to write her mother and say, sorry for the confusion / That of course there had been no sin / To emphasize how much I love Jesus and men,” Torres sings.
Raised in Christian households, both Baker and Torres have struggled with the burdensome tension between religion and their sexuality. “Tuesday” is a perfect example of the album’s admirable sincerity. However, its lackluster and monotonous instrumentals thwart it, like many other tracks on the album, from being outstanding. Sluggish and repetitive melodies, as well as tiresome instrumentals, characterize a number of the record’s songs.
The meaning of “Sylvia,” the record’s penultimate track, is isolated from the rest, as it describes Torres’ dog. Despite lyrics only tangentially relating to the other tracks, the song has a replayable melody and a bittersweet tone. Torres’ and Baker’s complementary voices pronounce the song as an album standout.
Beginning with a vulgar, mistakenly-caught joke, “Goodbye Baby” quickly becomes heartwarming and enjoyable, with lively guitar and a relatively fast tempo. Finishing a largely despairing album with an undeniable love song, Baker and Torres close the record on an affectionate and softhearted note.
In a genre often criticized for its lack of diversity, Send a Prayer My Way adds much-needed perspective. However, while the album succeeds in delving into meaningful and vulnerable themes, its enduring low mood and lack of dynamic and memorable breaks hinder it from being especially memorable.
