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Jenny from Thebes his “fake musical,”
Through This Fire
is the real thing: an honest-to-god musical tragedy where everyone walks into the theater knowing the ending. Darnielle’s songs have long felt like monologues overheard from the wings, the audience dropped in mid-soliloquy and left to piece together the story. This time, he builds the set too: wreckage at the lip of the proscenium, kelp tangled on beams, songs unfolding in strict chronological sequence. For a band once defined by the raw intimacy of a man and his boombox, it’s a striking metamorphosis.
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