Julien Baker & TORRES - ‘Sugar In The Tank’

Julien Baker and TORRES team up for the dazzling new single ‘Sugar In The Tank’, showing us the road to country music is bright and queer.

Singer-songwriters Julien Baker and TORRES’s Mackenzie Scott bonded over their shared experience of growing up queer in southern America, and chose to reflect their experience and love of country music in their first collaboration ‘Sugar In The Tank’.

The track is an unapologetic love letter to the country genre with beautiful banjo pluckings and a gleaming pedal steel guitar that makes the listener feel right at home. Both Baker and TORRES’ vocals blend perfectly together, creating beautiful harmonies as they sing the unabashedly romantic lyrics: ‘I love you sleeping on my dead left arm/Let you be the chain that keeps me closer to the ground’. The two manage to expertly find the sweet spot between passionate and realistic, reflecting a true to life kind of love that pulls on the heart strings of the listener that erupts joyously in the chorus into a declaration of love.

The poetic single is paired with an equally charming music video were the two perform the duet to an audience of line dancers, which they eventually join in. The video was shot in collaboration with the queer country dance party Stud Country with original choreography from co-founder Sean Monaghan and features a cast of queer community performers from New York City.

‘Sugar In The Tank’ is a celebration of country music and the queer experience of finding the joy within it.

Words by George Venus

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WTHB OnlineJanuary 17, 2025Reviews, Single Review