Boygenius – ‘the rest’ EP review: fine filler from the band of the moment
It’s only been about six months since Boygenius released their startling debut LP, The Record. In that time, they’ve risen from a vanity supergroup to perhaps the true saviors of rock music. Pulling in the same crowds that pop superstars have without bowing to any external pressures, it’s essential to keep the Boygenius ball rolling. That’s why we’re getting a brand-new EP, the rest.
If you happened to catch the band during their blowout Madison Square Garden appearance earlier this month, you were able to catch all four songs from the rest being performed live for the second time (all four tracks had their debuts on different nights in the week leading up to the MSG show). For those of us who weren’t so lucky, this is our first real taste of Boygenius post-The Record.
‘Black Hole’ is a classic slow-burn from a band that loves these kinds of songs. As Julien Baker preempts a sci-fi apocalypse, a buzzy electronic backing track builds momentum until pianos, drum lines, and fractured synth lines start colliding with each other. Lucy Dacus falls in by describing the attributes and attitudes of the most recent boneheaded partner/friend/acquaintance that often pops up in Boygenius songs.
Dacus picks the thread back up on ‘Afraid of Heights’, the EP’s best track. Making a strong distinction between wanting to experience the vitality of life while also not taking stupid risks to feel like you’re alive, Dacus lays out a story of jumping off cliffs and climbing cranes to set construction sites on fire. With a subtle nod back to ‘Arsonist’ from The Record, ‘Afraid of Heights’ is as poignant as it is lovely.
After two songs where her voice was either restricted to harmony or completely absent, Phoebe Bridgers steps into the spotlight for ‘Voyager’. It’s… pretty much like every other Phoebe Bridgers song that you’ve ever heard. Rotten love, mutually assured destruction, mind readings (just like in ‘Cool About It’). The fatalistic feelings and tragedy-baiting are classic Bridgers tropes, but they’re better on tracks like ‘Me and My Dog’ and ‘Emily I’m Sorry’.
Baker, who is quickly emerging as the band’s nominal leader, closes things out with ‘powers’, a poetic and hard-hitting superhero origin story. Revisiting the outer space sounds of ‘Black Hole’, Baker lays out the densest and strangest song on the album. It’s almost as if she’s trying to make her own ‘I Know The End’, completely with fanfare trumpet lines and an end-of-the-world sense of dread bringing the EP to an end.
There’s one major oversight here: ‘Boyfriends’, the wild indie rock Bridgers-Dacus duet that has been a staple of the band’s live sets this year, is nowhere to be found. It probably didn’t fit the spacey and slightly ambient style of the rest, but it’s also a killer song that hasn’t seen an official release yet. That’s a bummer because ‘Boyfriends’ would have been the EP’s highlight track.
It also would have given Bridgers something more to do. Although her harmony work is on point, Bridgers seems largely checked out of the rest as Baker and Dacus lead the charge. Her one song is easily the least memorable; her presence is minimal, and she doesn’t even get to unleash a scream on this record. That’s a missed opportunity if I’ve ever seen one.
But the rest doesn’t seem all that interested in matching the same heights as the group’s previous releases. It’s a group of songs with a certain vibe that will placate the band’s already-rabid fanbase for a few minutes as we all wait for Boygenius to either come to our town or put out another full-length album.
the rest doesn’t have the same level of material that the band’s debut EP has. It certainly doesn’t stack up to the band’s titanic full-length LP, which is an out-an-out five star record. Instead, the rest is (hopefully) a sure sign that the members of Boygenius aren’t just packing it in and going back to their respective solo careers. These are three women who have completely taken over the rock world and are at the peak of their respective powers. So why stop now?
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