Wayfinder

The project of indie singer/songwriter Taylor Vick, Boy Scouts expanded from a solitary endeavor to a more fleshed-out, collaborative one with 2019's Free Company, her Anti-/Epitaph debut. Following in its footsteps two years later, Wayfinder is informed by pandemic isolation rather than a breakup, but it returns Stephen Steinbrink as co-producer and includes contributions from around a dozen guests, most prevalently Steinbrink and Vick's brother Travis. It represents Boy Scouts' first pilgrimage to The Unknown studio in Anacortes, Washington, a converted church operated by Phil Elverum and Nicholas Wilbur. After an instrumental prelude that includes an escalating guitar chord progression and rhythmic, multi-tracked vocables, the reflective "I Get High" starts things off with the lyrics "I get high/Find a view/Nothing better to do/When it's just me/For company." Relatable lockdown ruminations go on to consider things she wants (a kiss, some dessert, a dog, "you") alongside dreamy, bittersweet guitar, Wurlitzer, and bass. It only adds drums near the end to help break open a fuzzy guitar solo. The achieved playful sincerity holds for much of the track list, with Vick's intimate, lilting confessions supported by layered, processed timbres that land two-thirds of the way between subtly cartoonish and dreamlike. She adds strings to the mix on the wistful, harmony-rich "The Floor" and on "Didn't I?," a plaintive ballad that tries to follow the present, memories, dream narratives, and lucid dreams. A midtempo set almost from beginning to end, among Wayfinder's relatively livelier, full-band entries are "A Lot to Ask" and "Big Fan," which features wide-ranging backing vocals by Jay Som's Melina Duterte. Even still, the album never quite steps out into the sun. ~ Marcy Donelson