Nearly a decade in the making, indie-rock singer-songwriters Julien Baker and TORRES have finally delivered on their promise to each other to record a country album. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how you look at it), it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time.

In the official press materials for Send A Prayer My Way, there’s an official dedication from novelist Elizabeth Wetmore, titled “The New Outlaws.” Outlaw country has always been one of music’s most storied and celebrated subgenres, but when we live in a world full of hateful, discriminatory laws, it might look a little different. Instead of shooting a man in Reno, Baker and TORRES – who both grew up lesbian in oppressively religious households in the American south – partake in the modern-day outlaw mould by doing something much more benign: living, loving, and finding the little joys in a world that increasingly seems to have it out for them simply for being who they are.

Baker and TORRES aren’t simply jumping on the country trend either – the slide guitars and honky-tonk instrumentals on the project show a genuine reverence for the old-fashioned storytelling framework, perhaps made the most evident on songs like “Tuesday.” TORRES instructs listeners to gather around as she tells her tale of woe, lamenting a youthful relationship gone by at a time when she wasn’t enough of a hardened outlaw to stand up to her mother. Baker’s flair for a simple lyric that hits deeply returns, as well, joining TORRES in harmony to sing the album’s thesis: “If the going’s tough, I will not cower, and all the passing years won’t wash me away.”