A review of the rest by boygenius
On March 31, 2023, the indie powerhouse boygenius, composed of solo artists Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, broke the indie-rock world with their debut album, the record. Its hit “Not Strong Enough” quickly became a fan favorite and could be seen in very sad television show edits all over TikTok. With such a positive response from these artists' first debut album together, I can only imagine how nerve-wracking it was to put out a four-track extended play (EP) just seven months after the record’s release. With such a bare-bones tracklist, they are afforded nowhere to hide, but any apprehension is absent within boygenius.
At midnight on the dot this past Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 I tuned in to listen to the EP titled the rest to see how it compared in quality, sound, and lyricism to their previous two collaborative works, and let me just say—I was certainly not disappointed. The EP’s tracks consist of the opener “Black Hole,” which has a transition into “Afraid of Heights” (a track which makes the EP as a whole worth listening to), then “Voyager” and “Powers” amount to a 12-minute listen-through when all is said and done.
Poetically beautiful themes can be seen in the album the record, and this is dialed to the max in the rest, with an enduring theme of hope and struggle even in the face of impossible odds. The opening verse to “Black Hole” is an incredible example, with emotionally charged lines like “You can see the stars, the ones / the headlines said this morning / were bein’ spat out by what we thought / was just destroyin’ everything for good.”
When listening to this opening track, I could not help but compare it to the previously mentioned hit, “Not Strong Enough,” from the record due to the opening lyrics to this track, “Black hole opened in the kitchen.” Thinking of this song contrasted against the standout hit of their album made me feel as though, in some ways, the EP as a whole works as a response to the message of this song. “Not Strong Enough” is a song that, by title alone, shows thematic ideas of insecurity, hopelessness, and not feeling like you are enough. The band boygenius, knowing this is the most widespread of the album’s songs, then makes an entirely hopelessly hopeful EP in a move that I deem incredibly elegant and works to further create a “storyline” of sorts throughout the supergroup’s overall discography.
This album also marks the return of a slower, more traditionally indie sound with a production dominated mainly by acoustic guitar and powerful narrative lyricism; this can even be seen in the group’s solo work and, especially in their first EP from 2018, titled Boygenius. This return does well in the EP, working as a pseudo “deluxe-edition” to the record because it continues the sentiments in the album’s closing track, “...want[ing] to be happy.”
In further exploration of what kind of life the three artists wish to live, remarking, “I wanna live a vibrant life / but I wanna die a boring death” in “Afraid of Heights,” my personal favorite. In “Voyager, we see evocative commentary on the transformative powers of love, stating, “...I used to believe no one could love you like I do / and I’m starting to think it might be impossible not to.” Though short, these songs are filled to the brim with subtext and genuinely encapsulating narratives, making you resonate with the group and feel their pain.
With that being said, the final track, “powers” leaves us with a statement surrounding the collective synergy of the group’s work. It uses the universe coming to being as an extended metaphor for their friendship and EP, describing their unity in vision in a way I never could, “The force of our impact, the fission / the hum of our contact, the sound of our collison.” With this being said, if you want a thought-provoking and retrospective listening experience, look no further and listen to boygenuis’ new EP pronto!