Cassandra Cronin on December 14th, 2017

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The “raw theater” electro-pop outfit responsible for last year’s breakout single “Attitude” doubles down this month with “Him,” a sardonic electro-canticle with dynamics big enough to fill a cathedral, though its themes may blaspheme such a setting. The songwriting duo behind Dana and the Wolf are couple Daniel Wolf and Dana Lynn Hobson, who categorize their music as “raw theater” because, as Hobson explains, “the two polar things at play there, I think, are hip-hop and musicals. Because hip-hop to me is so raw. Like, they always break the fourth wall, they always name their own names in the song, they talk literally about what’s happening in the world. And then musicals are like, clever and epic and all that. Epic songs that everyone loves but knows are so cheesy. We’re always kind of looking for a layer of that in our music.”

The lyrics go after flaws in our relationships, in heaven and on earth: “You could relate it to a man, a toxic relationship with a man, but it could also be a toxic relationship with organized religion,” says Hobson. The track draws inspiration from Wolf’s separation from Judaism at 18 and delves into the ways in which religion, like a domestic abuser, can keep a person trapped in fear: “A part of me / will always hold / the broken love / that I was sold,” reads one of Wolf’s lyrics from the track. “There’s always in the back of my mind the fear like, am I going to be deeply punished for having given it up? It’s so ridiculous because I am so against it now, but it’s always gonna be there.”

“Him,” the fourth single from the duo, is just out.

||| Stream: “Him”

||| Previously: “Close Enough”