Julien Baker, Torres - Send A Prayer My Way (2025)

After making a record, and touring, with boygenius—her super-group collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus—you might expect Julien Baker to be itchy to return to her solo career. Instead, the guitar god is still in teamwork mode and has joined forces with singer-songwriter TORRES (née Mackenzie Ruth Scott) for a classic country record, rather than pandering to new fans who fell for the "boys" on Taylor Swift's "Eras" tour. Both TORRES and Baker have flirted with country before, but here they go all the way, their way. No novelty, Send a Prayer My Way riffs on age-old genre tropes with a modern, queer perspective. Shuffling "Bottom of a Bottle," led by TORRES, is tear-in-my-beer song with a Brandi Carlile-esque sheen. "The Only Marble I've Got Left" comes on like a gorgeous early '70s country duet, à la George Jones and Tammy Wynette, as Baker takes the high road in their harmonizing. The pair make an intriguing match—nowhere more so than on "Dirt," which sounds like Lilith Fair folk and features fiddle from Sarah Goldstone and pedal steel from J. R. Bohannon. While boygenius' harmonies were often angelic, TORRES brings a deeper, brawnier richness to complement Baker's deceptive sweetness (it's a TKO when Baker, who has spoken openly of her substance abuse and subsequent sobriety, sings, "Spend your whole life getting cleeeeeean/ Just to wind up in the dirt"). TORRES knows when to play it low-key and not overwhelm her duet partner, as on sleepy-eyed "Downhill Both Ways." But she also makes the most of her solo turns in the spotlight: On "Sylvia," which recalls the more countrified work of Jenny Lewis' catalog, you can feel the ache in her voice as she sings about leaving a true love—her dog—to go on tour. "Haunted by all the goodnights that I've missed/ Every time your cheek goes unkissed," she lays it on thick. "Tuesday" reveals incredible emotional range, as TORRES goes from a cowed hush to prideful strength while revealing how youthful actions can stick with you for decades. It starts with the narrator recalling a teenage friend whose mother was fearful of her daughter hanging out with someone who might be gay. "Next thing I know, her mama's calling, telling her daughter/ Just the thought of it made her sick over the toilet/ Instead of backing me up, Tuesday melted right down/ Asked me to write her mother and say, ‘Sorry for the confusion,'" Torres sings—before adding on grown-up hindsight: "No, I cannot believe that I stepped down and lied/ I should have told you I loved you." There are songs about crying ("No Desert Flower") and blind devotion (jangling single "Sugar in the Tank"), as well as the revelation that Baker's voice is well suited to a Neil Young and Crazy Horse vibe ("Tape Runs Out"). Produced with pure clarity by Sarah Tudzin, Send a Prayer My Way offers no frills or bells and whistles—nor are any needed.

TRACKLIST

1. Torres;Julien Baker - Dirt
2. Torres;Julien Baker - The Only Marble I've Got Left
3. Torres;Julien Baker - Sugar in the Tank
4. Torres;Julien Baker - Bottom of a Bottle
5. Torres;Julien Baker - Downhill Both Ways
6. Torres;Julien Baker - No Desert Flower
7. Torres;Julien Baker - Tape Runs Out
8. Torres;Julien Baker - Off the Wagon
9. Torres;Julien Baker - Tuesday
10. Torres;Julien Baker - Showdown
11. Torres;Julien Baker - Sylvia
12. Torres;Julien Baker - Goodbye Baby