There's a moment toward the end of "Hometown Hooray"-- from Phylactery Factory, Casey Dienel's debut as White Hinterland-- that reveals her range and potential impact under this new moniker. The song begins as a breezy ditty, with a girl, Dienel's narrator, carving her lover's name into the trunk of a cypress. He leaves for war and, of course, doesn't return, inspiring the townsfolk to tie yellow ribbons around every tree in the typical patriotic memorial. Seeing this marker over his name, Dienel sings, "I rip that ribbon off the tree, burn it down by the river that now shares your name." It's a startling, simple, and poetically defiant act, neatly and decisively wiping away the politics and statistics to find the human being. "No one wants to believe you died in vain," Dienel concludes, as her piano returns to that original breezy theme: There is a bittersweet freedom, she discovers, in accepting the meaninglessness of the tragedy.