Julien Baker and TORRES Fall Short of Steadier Footing on Send a Prayer My Way
The singer-songwriters’ first collaborative album together is a sugary take on a long-worn country template. The stories they sing are necessary, even when the music plays it safe.
Combined, Julien Baker and TORRES’ Mackenzie Scott have released nine solo studio albums, each title vibrating with an impressive reserve of craftsmanship. In the context of indie music’s last decade especially, they are among the most consistent creators in their field. Turn Out the Lights, Three Futures, Silver Tongue, and Little Oblivions are great records, all of which push heart-on-the-sleeve, big-feeling rock songs over the finish line. But considering how Scott’s upbringing in Georgia and Baker’s in Tennessee revolved around country music, it’s shocking that it’s taken them both this long to wade into the genre’s annals.
Baker and Scott’s history together goes back nine years, to when the two musicians played a show with Palehound at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. During COVID, Scott floated the idea of making a country record to Baker, who was equally interested in making the pivot. Time passed, and TORRES released three studio albums. Baker put out Little Oblivions in 2021 and won a few Grammys with her boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. But behind the scenes, their individual interests were always gravitating towards one another.
After performing “Sugar in the Tank” at Webster Hall in the fall of 2024, Baker and Scott’s new project together made its official debut at Big Ears Festival. The song was an immediate success, and it’s easily one of the strongest non-solo tracks Baker has ever worked on. Aisha Burns’ fiddle playing stands out, as does Baker and Scott’s chemistry at every juncture. “I love you swimming upstream in a flash flood, wondering when I’m gonna drown / Picking up steam on the off-ramp, getting the hell out of downtown / Let you be the chain that keeps me closer to the ground” is a verse I’ve been humming since I first heard it. “Sugar in the Tank” is this half of the decade’s version of Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen’s “Like I Used To”—two of our very best singer-songwriters colliding when we really needed it. Some collabs feel like novelties, but this is a track that packs the right kind of wallop. And who would ever turn down a good Drag Race reference?
“Sugar in the Tank” was hardly the whole picture though, as news of an album soon followed the single’s acclaim. Send a Prayer My Way was produced by illuminati hotties’ Sarah Tudzin—who worked with Baker previously on boygenius’ debut—and you can hear her touch on these tunes in every song’s punch. This is the album you get when rock and pop-punk styles get interwoven into country contexts. But that no-brainer collaboration has its hang-ups, as the music’s urgency is often absent even if the mood is cleverly relentless. The slow-burn winks, like “Tuesday,” and the humorous riots, like “The Only Marble I’ve Got Left,” hold your attention even without innovation. Baker and Scott are both products of the ‘90s, which makes their penchant for radio-friendly melodies sensibly justified. Think Shania Twain, but gay as hell—or just Shania Twain. What sets the sound apart, however, is the depths in which the duo plumb to keep Send a Prayer My Way away from playlist fodder.
And Baker and Scott are no strangers to writing about religion, queerness, and the working-class South—it’s a great point of entry into both of their discographies—but there are instances on Send a Prayer My Way where it sounds like, after more than a decade running the same errands, they’re retreading the same ideas, almost disappointingly so. The achy ballad “Tuesday” tackles shame and institutional/parental homophobia, yet the song’s power is undercut by Scott offhandedly singing, “Tell your mama she can go suck an egg.” “Goodbye Baby” argues that sticking an unnecessary, oddly-censored quip about “the difference between jelly and jam” is a worthwhile aesthetic choice. There’s an attempt to grab at the kind of playfulness that makes a song like Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” empowering regardless of gimmick, as the chugging, bar-draped chords turn into a singalong. But even in error, Baker and TORRES sound defiant. Their decision to sing about queerness—an identity long-vexed and abandoned in country music—without letting these songs slip too far into the doldrums is a remarkable swing.
The best moments on Send a Prayer My Way happen during “Sylvia” and “Dirt.” On the former, Scott sings about their dog and what companionship looks like when you’re aging separately: “A day for me is a week for you, and my life’s already halfway through.” It’s the least “country” song on the album, retreating back to TORRES’ indie-rock continuum. Baker’s “Dirt,” which begins the record in a plucky, fiddle-assisted block of oneness, is a particularly stunning take on substance abuse—a thread in her work dating back to Sprained Ankle. “Spend your whole life getting clean just to wind up in the dirt,” she recalls. Even “Tape Runs Out” has merit I keep returning to, as Baker sings “I never met a sin I’m above tryin’” and lands it refreshingly in a getup of palm-muted strums and a weathered pedal steel that returns on “The Only Marble I’ve Got Left.”
Everyone’s making a country record these days, but the genre is not having the comeback that writers and listeners have been postulating. Beyoncé, Post Malone, Ringo Starr, and Lana Del Rey have bought into it, turning their pivots into trendy career chapters—and even if their intentions come from a place of respect or ambition, most of them are chasing streams, not tradition. And, frankly, a lot of these segues aren’t that interesting, landing on the cosmetic side of the genre instead of anything authentic. You check a box of stereotypes and fashion your sound into something reminiscent of what the radio has convinced you real country music is—what country music is “sellable.” It’s formulaic and rote. Like Beyoncé, Baker and Scott have both put the miles in, and their hearts are certainly in it—this music isn’t money-driven. But unlike Beyoncé, what they’ve come up with is conventionally generic more often than it’s not. And, considering how the two musicians are reckoning so immediately and honestly with how their lives have been altered by devout faith and homophobia, that’s a letdown.
Send a Prayer My Way probably sounds great clanking off walls of a line-dancing bar, thanks to Tudzin’s production, which works because she’s never been an engineer narrowed by bells and whistles. The bubblegum heart of the heavy-hitter songs pumps with a catchiness not often heard in this duo’s respective solo careers, even if their lyricism is the only unconventional element present. Yet, if you allow yourself to step out of the “country music” label affixed to Send a Prayer My Way, you’ll be welcomed by a well-made, fine-sounding indie-pop album. Years from now, we might look back on this record as a stepping stone towards a greater reclamation in country music. But for now, these songs are especially great when you aren’t worried about whether or not they’re meeting a certain genre criteria. On a granular level, Julien Baker and TORRES are open wide and feeling good.
Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.
