'Send a Prayer My Way' by Julien Baker & Torres
On their terrific new country album, Julien Baker and Mackenzie Scott "haven't just mastered the form," said Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone. "They've folded their own lives into its history." Both are queer indie-rock heroes: Baker is a member of Boygenius and Scott records as Torres. But each grew up in the South listening to and loving Patsy Cline, George Strait, and more recent country luminaries, and this set of original songs reflects those deep connections even while the two friends rewrite genre conventions to fit themselves in.
"The album's obsessed with love, in every iteration," said Caitlin Wolper Phillips in Pitchfork. On the rollicking single "Sugar in the Tank," Baker sings "I love you" at the start of each line, ramping up to a chorus, fueled by banjo and Hammond organ, in which the duo blends earnest harmonies with "tongue-in-cheek sultriness." Other songs here "feel more pastiche than inventive," and raise the possibility that this album will be a one-off for both of them, "like a Stetson you try on that ultimately doesn't fit." Even so, their expansion of the genre's potential is an important step forward.
'Thee Black Boltz' by Tunde Adebimpe
"You would not know, on first listen, that this effervescent debut solo album by the sometime frontman of TV on the Radio was steeped in grief," said Kitty Empire in The Guardian. Tunde Adebimpe had begun working on the songs when his sister died of a heart attack, and the singer-actor-artist channeled his anger and sorrow into "snaggle-toothed synth-punk cuts and bouncy synth-pop sounds." While nothing he does here will surprise fans of the Brooklyn art-rock outfit he led, "his pop instincts have come to the fore," even as they draw on a range of influences from New Order to electronic dancehall reggae.
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When Thee Black Boltz is firing, it sounds like "an unmediated transmission from the songwriter's soul," said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. "Somebody New" has "the jittery energy of early Depeche Mode" except with bighearted vocals. True, the record's "proudly homemade" aesthetic sometimes undermines the songs' potential. But Thee Black Boltz never becomes boring, thanks to Adebimpe's poetic sensibility and distinctive melodies. "Anyone moved by TV on the Radio should hear it."
'What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow' by Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson
What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow "has the warm glow and relaxed feeling of a back-porch summer jam session," said Matt Collar in AllMusic. Banjoist Rhiannon Giddens and fiddler Justin Robinson, two members of the Grammy-winning folk trio the Carolina Chocolate Drops, reunited to record this "exuberantly rootsy" set of Black string-band tunes from North Carolina's Piedmont region. The pair recorded many of the 18 tracks outdoors at the home of their deceased mentor, fiddler Joe Thompson, and others at the former home of singer-guitarist Etta Baker.
"Hook and Line" and "Duck's Eyeball" reel with "a dancerly, down-home energy," while the record's vocal duets are especially vibrant. "Giddens is a visionary as well as a revitalizer," having attracted a large audience to this music, said Grant Britt in No Depression. She offers credit to Thompson, who in the 1930s developed a percussive fiddle style that proved an "irresistible stimulant" for square dancers. She and Robinson both studied with him. Meanwhile, they honor Baker with a rendering of "Marching Jaybird" that's "suitable for shoes-off, feet-up, laid-back listening."
