Six months after their debut studio album dropped, boygenius is back with a four-track EP continuing the thread of March’s the record. The EP, titled the rest, was released on October 13 and consists of four new tracks: “Black Hole,” “Afraid of Heights,” “Voyager,” and “Powers.”
Boygenius began their whirlwind tour—called simply The Tour—in June in Canada and the Western U.S., then branching out to the Netherlands, Europe, and the U.K. before coming back for a U.S. leg. The trek concludes on Halloween in Los Angeles.
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The band, which consists of artists Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, announced the EP in late September. They debuted each new song at different shows on their tour, culminating in the EP’s October release. Other new releases from boygenius include an animated video for their single “Cool With It,” which was featured on The Record.
Speaking with Variety in April, Lucy Dacus touched on the band’s dynamics and balance when performing and writing The Record. “It might have even just been unspoken that we want to be equally represented on the record,” Dacus said. “That’s kind of just true in general for all the stuff we do together. There’s no lead singer of the band. We’re all doing everything together. We all have equal input.”
Dacus continued, “Even on the songs that are led by somebody, we think through them together. I think that it ended up with a nice balance. We had a bunch more songs that we were working on that didn’t make the record. And I think part of deciding which songs to keep on is like, ‘Oh, well, we can’t have seven songs that are all Julien.’”
The rest features boygenius’ signature melancholy, sad-indie sound, but is bolstered by more triumphant, accomplished lyrics showcasing their identities as queer women and opening the door to rapture and joy.
Photo by Matt Grubb, The Oriel