Boy Golden + Three More Music Recs
A full-length review and two(-ish) short ones
Boy Golden is just like the rest of us. “I wanna know where my money went / I want a new fucking president,” the musician born Liam Duncan sings on the alt-country stomper “Suffer,” the opening salvo and lead single from his1 sophomore LP Best of Our Possible Lives. Sure, Duncan is from Winnipeg, but the point is well-made: Across cultural and literal borders, it’s human nature to want out with the fuckers up top.
“Suffer” is a charged, invigorating, and excellent introduction to Best of Our Possible Lives’ themes2: all the ways we go the fuck through it, all the ways we return to a sense of stasis. The album’s primary narratives are of longing, hitting the road, and longing even harder, and these are all staples of country music, previously a genre to which Duncan concretely belonged.
Where this genre dominated his auspicious 2021 debut album Church of Better Daze and his intriguing 2023 For Jimmy EP, Best of Our Possible Lives is much more stylistically diverse and all the more exciting for it. Country traits remain, but they share the stage with cues from ‘70s folk, fiery rock music, and classic R&B.
Duncan lands upon his much-improved sound with support from his co-producer Robbie Lackritz (and, somehow, the legendary3 Pino Palladino4 on bass, kind of a miracle and a slay for a rising artist). Together, he and Lackritz have nailed down the most affecting, confident Boy Golden songs to date, with the potent, poignant music deftly matching Duncan’s trenchant narratives.
Duncan shines in the contrasts between dark and light. “I’m a clown at a funeral,” he laments toward the start of the majestic “New Orleans.” On “The Matter at Hand,” atop alluring guitars and breezy percussion, a funeral is a site of revelation: “We all got drunk in the parking lot / And I didn’t want the night to end / Ain’t that some kind of fucked up?” Our lowest moments, it turns out, might just bring us all together.
In other rough times, Duncan gets out of dodge. He drives across borders and past Lake Michigan on “Chickadee,” a woozy, R&B-inflected track that’s a complete stunner, and he recounts a solo vacation on the folky, softly lit “Meadowsweet.”
On both these tracks, though, his mind drifts to the object of his affection across the sprawling distance. There’s his “sweet little chickadee” on “Chickadee,” a partner named Valentine on “Meadosweet.” “I been alone for weeks, but darling, if I’m honest / It’s you, Valentine, you been on my mind,” he sings quietly and earnestly on the latter. He leaves the site of his ache only to discover that he needs to return, that love is one’s true home.
Yes, these are country tropes; Best of Our Possible Lives is rooted in the genre while transcending it. “You Got It” has an undercurrent of Western guitars but is mostly a snarling, brassy firestorm; “Like a Child” is more Fleetwood Mac than Johnny Cash. You’ll hear country-esque licks and tongue-in-cheek characterizations on “Bad Habits” and “Moontan,” but the former’s pop savvy and the latter’s folky spaciousness push the Boy Golden project delightfully beyond its original genre.
So too do Duncan’s occasional allusions to his queerness, which are flashes in the pan amid broader stories. As he cycles through country motifs (selling his soul, sun beating down) on “The Matter at Hand,” he tosses in some Prince-style gender subversion in the first chorus: “You can break a man’s heart / But you can’t break mine.” As the snarling two-part guitar attack of “Cowboy Dreams” re-emerges, he and featured vocalist Cat Clyde5, another rising Canadian country artist, sing “If I were a playing card / I’d be your queen.”
To be an out LGBTQ+ artist in country is to subvert the genre even if, from Lavender Country’s self-titled 1973 debut LP to Orville Peck nowadays, country has been queer for decades. Despite the genre’s rich queer history, it’s long been dominated by cishet, overtly masculinized white men (though its origins are with Black musicians). To actually write lyrics that allude to gender fluidity is still risky in present-day country, and Duncan does so effortlessly, making his art more enriching.
Although Best of Our Possible Lives distills Duncan’s perspective to its purest form, it could benefit from some editing; it loses some steam by its final third. On the album’s last song, the sprightly yet balmy folk-rock title track, Duncan sings, “We can own our place in the mess of things / Find our way in time / In the best of our possible lives.” To experience emotional rollercoasters, he suggests, is inevitable. It’s how we choose to move through them that makes us human.
ALBUM RATING: PRETTY GOOD!
Your turn now: Which of the singles embedded above is your favorite, and why? Which of the non-singles are you excited to hear upon listening to the album? Share your thoughts:
What else I’ve been listening to
Slut Intent: Slutworld (2026)
We’re only about 40 days into 2026, but I could swear that Minneapolis hardcore five-piece Slut Intent releasing its debut album on New Year’s Day was an act of prophecy.
On Slutworld6, vocalist Katy Kelly shouts and snarls about wealth inequality, the cowardice of the ruling class, rape culture, and so much more. It’s “Glitch,” though, that expresses a sentiment the band’s entire city would feel just six days after the album’s release when masked ICE agents murdered Renee Nicole Good (and again on January 24 when ICE murdered Alex Pretti): “What’s the reason you hide your face? / Fucking cowards who turn away?”
We all know why, and it’s long past time that we don’t turn away in tandem. Kelly leads us into the revolution on Slutworld closer “Girls Night”: “Torches to the cop cars / That’s the way this goes.” Let’s hope that’s also prophetic.
Mandy, Indiana: URGH (2026)
This is among my early contenders for AOTY. On Mandy, Indiana’s sophomore album URGH, the British quartet intensifies its signature militaristic percussion and screeching, riotous guitars and synths while breaking tremendous ground within noise-rock.
“Magazine” and “Life Hex” pick up where the group’s 2023 debut album i’ve seen a way left off while sounding even more gloriously violent and cathartic. “Cursive” is like if New Order played bongos and congas; the four-part behemoth “ist halt so” is a rallying cry that’s as Lighting Bolt as it is hard techno.
The mosh-pit music and frontperson Valentine Caulfield’s shouted French vocals combine into a soundtrack for smashing the walls as they close in around us all. You can feel Caulfield’s urgency and rage even before closer “I’ll Ask Her,” which is her first song performed in English and a righteous screed against men who protect their rapist friends. If 2026 is the year of burning everything down, URGH is the soundtrack to throwing the first Molotov.
Mitski: “Where’s My Phone?” (2026)
The next edition of Lavender Sound will be a review of Mitski’s upcoming eighth (!!) album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, which is out on February 27. Get hyped by listening to this lead single!
What I’ve been reading
Steve Goldberg’s ‘Me, Pat Benatar, and My Sister Lisa’ memoir series:
You wanted to believe her; she’s the professional, right? But so much of what the doctors, the nurses, the lung specialists who had been treating Lisa over the past several months told you had turned out to be wrong.
The Twelve Inch (Disco/80s)’s two-part series on Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”:
Donna Summer’s vocal took the song even further from anything she had recorded before. Where “Love To Love You Baby” was physical, “I Feel Love” was almost unearthly.
Stand with Minnesota: To say that we are under siege feels like an understatement.
People not in Minnesota are finding these stories hard to believe and think we are exaggerating because the reality we are facing is one that is just that unbelievable (if you are not already someone accustomed to the cruelties that state has historically imposed). How could all these atrocities *really* be happening? I assure they are. And they are much worse than you are hearing about.
Duncan’s pronouns are he/they. I’m using “he” for consistency.
Although Duncan’s perspective on “Suffer” that retail therapy and watching TV numb us from becoming politically active isn’t quite entwined with the rest of the album’s themes, it’s such a sharp and correct take that I had to shout it out in this footnote.
Seriously, look at all the smash-success albums Pino Palladino has played bass on! The man is a legend who’s never needed to take the front seat.
Nepo baby alert! I only recently realized that the R&B musician Fabiana Palladino is Pino Palladino’s daughter. That doesn’t make her 2024 self-titled debut album any less great — give it a spin!
Clyde is also featured on “Moontan.”
Thanks to Boyish for recommending Slutworld when interviewed by Yasi Salek! Read more about Boyish from me here.