Boy Genius “The Record” Album Review
By Timmy Keil
Heartbreak stories, family traumas, broken relationships, mended relationships; Boy Genius’s “The Record” spills every story with beautiful writing and instrumentation.
Boy Genius is a three-piece supergroup consisting of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and superstar Phoebe Bridgers to make up a stacked lineup of genius women.“The Record,” being the second release of Boy Genius, is unmistakably unique and sets the distinction that Boy Genius is, in fact, Boy Genius and not a Phoebe Bridgers side project.
Photo of Boy Genius taken from Pinterest
The opening track, “Without You Without Them,” establishes the tone of the album effortlessly, literally. The trio performs an acapella indie ballad seemingly recorded on an iPhone in a reverberated room to encapsulate the intimate setting that this album takes place in. They sing to their fathers and grandmothers as they write about the appreciated history of these generations and the longing for seamless involvement to bridge the gap between their families.
Blurring the lines of rhythm-heavy pop-rock on tracks like “$20” to folk ballads with soft melodic banjos and acoustic guitars on “Cool About It,” Boy Genius proves their versatility across the entire project. They maintain this versatility throughout the record as the album's end displays a perfect juxtaposition again with a rock-to-ballad track pair. The track “Satanist” unmistakably has some of the group’s heaviest instrumentation with percussive guitars and pounding drums that ends with an even more lively vocal as Phoebe Bridgers unleashes a scream to close out all pop tracks from the rest of the album.
“The Record” comes full circle on the last track of the album as the group joins vocals again, yet this time with perfectly simple production. “Letter To An Old Poet” lays the instrumental groundwork with only a piano and violin as the group sings about a toxic relationship and the effect it had on them at the time.
Boy Genius’s “The Record” takes the listener on a journey that makes every track almost impossible to skip. Each song on the record features a rise and fall in energy but a constant high in emotion and listenability.
I rate this album a 9/10