H.C. McEntire doesn’t write lyrics; she writes poetry. Growing up in the tiny rural community of Green Creek, outside Tryon, North Carolina, she knows how to tell a story.

Ahead of tomorrow evening’s online performance, McEntire is serving a second slice of her new album Eno Axis (out August 21)! On “Final Bow,” she leads her band through several distinct passages of adventurous Americana, connecting her storytelling with perfectly timed hooks and couplets like “big business / just play the hits.” The resulting composition serves as another example of McEntire’s expertise; listen today alongside a visual created by Andrew Synowiez and Marie Garlock.

When asked about the song, McEntire replied: “This song is about consumption—the commodification of female sexuality, the inescapable struggle to present honest art within a capitalistic structure that applauds vanity and constant accessibility over mental health and self-care. Conceptually, I appreciate how Andrew and Marie considered the fatigue of this, in exposing the expectations of being an entertainer, by psychedelically anchoring the narrative in metaphors for relentlessness and drowning.”

Tomorrow night at 7pm ET, Duke Performances will premiere a new, specially recorded performance by H.C. McEntire, filmed at her Durham, NC, farmhouse on the Eno River, as part of its Music in Your Gardens series. Read an interview with McEntire on the Duke Performances website now, and set a reminder to watch the film tomorrow evening and participate in a live YouTube chat with the artist.

McEntire has always had one foot planted in the traditional country gospel roots of her upbringing while boldly wrestling with its complications, creating an Americana sound of her own. But that has never rung as true as it does now on the transcendent psalms of Eno Axis. The album was announced last month alongside “Time, On Fire,” called an “instantly appealing dose of jangly alt-country” by Brooklyn Vegan. Pre-order Eno Axis today on CD, LP, and copper marble Peak Vinyl in the Merge store, or wherever records are sold, and follow McEntire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

photo: Heather Evans Smith