If you didn't know any better, you might assume TORRES (a.k.a. Mackenzie Scott) and Julien Baker's new album, Send a Prayer My Way, was the latest in a growing trend of artists gone country. In reality, TORRES and Baker are simply making good on a half-hearted promise put out into the universe after performing together in 2016. In the years since, TORRES has built an impressive discography of six solo albums. Meanwhile, Baker has unlocked new levels of fame following boygenius's three-Grammy-winning album, the record.
Think of it like the Indigo Girls go west: two queer indie singer-songwriters who form a creative partnership and return to their roots. TORRES and Baker, born in Georgia and Tennessee respectively, reconnect with the music of their youth and expand their horizons anew on Send a Prayer My Way.
Listening to the gentle twang of their intermingling voices and plucky instrumentals, you'd never know it was their first foray into country. The duo sound like a seasoned Opry act — or better yet, 5 Spot regulars — as they make their way through the familiar tropes of the open road ("Sylvia"), booze-soaked heartache ("Bottom of the Bottle") and addiction ("Downhill Both Ways"). They nail the achy-breaky realities of the heart, as well as the stark loneliness of "Spend[ing] your whole life gettin' clean / Just to wind up in the dirt."
TORRES and Baker don't fully escape the influence of their strong indie milieus, but that's part of what makes Send a Prayer My Way so special: it feels a little folky, a little Americana, and a lot country. Steel guitars, delicate banjos, twinning harmonies and TORRES's signature violin weave their way in and out of the 12 tracks like a cozy, curled-up copperhead. "Tape Runs Out" echoes Songs: Ohia, while "No Desert Flower" calls to mind Mitski, and "Sylvia" teases Courtney Barnett. Underpinning it all is the slow moving current of TORRES and Baker's songwriting. Like any country crooner worth their salt, both individuals know the importance of a good story.
The current backdrop of America's overwhelming backlash against minorities and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities is hard to ignore as part of the context of the album's release. Leaving aside country's notoriously insular ring of fire, having to contend with the near-constant barrage of hateful rhetoric and restrictive policies is a lot — and although Send a Prayer My Way's inception wasn't preempted by anything other than artistic kinship, the album still stands tall in its telling of the queer experience.
"Tuesday" shares the story of a past relationship steeped in shame and self-harm, but ultimately redeemed by time: "And now I know that your shame was not mine / And I am perfect in my Lord's eyes." In a full-circle moment, album closer "Goodbye Baby" speaks to the loving relationship TORRES shares with their wife, painter Jenna Gribbon, as they wait for her return home each night.
Like Orville Peck, Brandi Carlile or Joy Oladokun, Baker and TORRES are creating space for queer artists and stories within the confines of a once-rigid genre. Send a Prayer My Way is an impressive and wholly cohesive debut that begs a follow-up, but it knows the uncertainty of the world it enters. Likewise, TORRES and Baker aren't here to necessarily fix anything or assuage your worries; they won't "be the angel on your shoulder," but they will love "all the way down to the last drag."
The duo's highs and lows mirror those of our own; in that way, they are as unremarkable and mundane as the rest of us. What could be more staggeringly intimate than that? TORRES and Baker's music elevates our shared experience to a level of catharsis akin to sitting on the stoop, sharing a lone dart with a friend as the sun goes down on another long day. Prayers ain't much, but they're honest work.