REVIEW: Boygenius – The Record

The short review looks like this: if you’ve already been playing boygenius to death like I have, you know that it’s a great album, everything that the debut EP promised and more, one of the albums of 2023 without a shadow of a doubt. We’re in agreement, go with God, enjoy yourself.

If however, you’ve yet to jump in, if you’ve registered the sound of lots of people saying ‘ooh this is good isn’t it?’ and figured you’ll get round to it at some point, let’s see if I can’t be the additional few grams of weight that tips the balance in favour of you carving out the time for a first listen (because, I think, rightly or wrongly, a first listen will give you enough to make time for further listens – there are immediate pleasures to be had here).

Before I jump in, a sidebar. The subtle hiatus Picky Bastards has enjoyed this last few weeks means that this particular reviewer has had time to listen to the debut boygenius record in a way that is not typical for a standard review. Normally when you are reviewing records, you act like a daytripper visiting Rome. You dash about the city. You get the sights in. You recognise the things you ought to recognise. Hopefully you get lost a couple of times and grab a beer in a side street bar that is as close to being off the beaten track as you are likely to get and you mentally pat yourself on the back for being a special sort of traveller. When you are in hiatus country, though, it’s like being gifted a fortnight in the country. You can enjoy the odd lie in. You can bask like a shark in the waters. You can get familiar without being pestered by the nagging of a deadline. All of which, dear reader, means that we can tell you: not only is the boygenius album good, it repays repeated listens and gets better over time.

 

Right, let’s begin with immediate pleasures.

‘Not Strong Enough’. 6th track on ‘The record’. There have been days this last month when this song has been all I listen to. On repeat. From the opening of, “Black hole opened in the kitchen / Every clock’s a different time” through the repeated refrain of “I don’t know why I am the way I am / Not strong enough to be your man”, this is a song that talks to me. I can’t tell you how I love the way in which one verse says “I tried / I can’t / stop staring at the ceiling fan” and another says “I lied / I can / Just lowering your expectations.” A guitar line begins under “Drag racing through the canyon” that just about breaks my heart.

‘Emily I’m Sorry’, a Phoebe Bridgers song possibly better than anything off Punisher. A song like a short story. Actually, no: a song like a great short story. A song by Lorrie Moore. (It’s not a song by Lorrie Moore but in a Carlsberg vein, if Lorrie Moore wrote songs etc). The point at which Bridgers sings, “Just take me back to Montreal / I’ll get a real job, you’ll go back to school / We can burn out in the freezing cold and just get lost…” Gut punch. “I’m 27 and I don’t know who I am…” Gut punch. It’s another heartbreaker but super pretty with it.

‘True Blue’, sang by Lucy Dacus, a song so instantly good that it will send you scurrying, shamefaced in the direction of her first three albums (No Burden, Historian and Home Video) to make amends for having missed some real good shit. As with ‘Not Strong Enough’, there are lines in ‘True Blue’ that establish instant repartee with the listener: “You said you wanted to feel alive”. “You say you’re a winter bitch / But summer’s in your blood.” “When you don’t know who you are / You fuck around and find out.” I remember who I am when I’m with you.” It’s a song awash with strange eternal truths. It certainly worked on me in funny ways.

Let’s talk less immediate pleasures. Album opener, campfire acapella singalong ‘Without You Without Them’, which places this record in a lineage of people who have gone before, people who have made us, people we need, people we talk to – this album made by three people successful in their own right, giving their time to each other, making something new and better and different than they would otherwise make themselves alone. First time through I listened with a sort of “ok ok next thing” impatience. Now it feels like the most ideal of scene setters. I love it like an aunt. It teaches me things (not least patience).

‘$20’ provides us with much needed riffage. We all like a good bit of riffage, yes? Fronted by Julien Baker and originally written outside of the group, I’d say that the last third of the song is the actual best that this album gets. If you want to hear what these three musicians can do together, when each brings their respective best to bear – it’s in the last 60 seconds of this song. It’s a howl in the moonlight and I fucking love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88rcPC8jsws

This feels like a record that is on your side. In ‘Revolution 0’, when (I think) Phoebe Bridgers inquires as to who broke our nose because she’s going to kick their ass, you can’t help but think: these people love us as much as we love them. And maybe, at the heart of it all, that’s what makes the boygenius record so damn good – it’s all about love, how hard it is, how great it is when it’s right or when it weathers storms. There’s even a song called ‘We’re in Love’ for Pete’s sake.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, it’s an album of continuing and renewing pleasures. I can talk about ‘Not Strong Enough’ or ‘Cool About It’ and someone else will talk about ‘Leonard Cohen’ or ‘Satanist’ or ‘Letter to an Old Poet’. What I love you may love. There may be things you love, things I haven’t even picked up yet, things I’ll get to in time.

What I do know is that I’ve been playing this record since the day it came out, pretty much every day, and a couple of months in nothing has budged it out of position. It’s strong is what we are saying. It’s a keeper. A record for the end of year lists. One for the ages. Long may boygenius reign.

Words by Pete Wild