In his 1611 elegy An Anatomy of the World, Elizabethan poet John Donne ponders the frailty of life. “How drie a Cinder this world is,” he writes, illuminating how easily the flames of tragedy can consume us whole, change us irreversibly. Be it loss, internal revelation, or simply the passage of time, these moments of transformation visit us all. From this poem, comes the title of Beacon’s fifth album. How drie a Cinder captures the Brooklyn duo of Jacob Gossett and Thomas Mullarney III at a high point of clarity and potency in their 15-year career, after emerging from their own transformations. “The majority of the album was written in the wake of my long-term partnership ending,” Thomas explains, “which forced not just change but metamorphosis-living as the same person was simply no longer possible.” Beacon explores personal evolution in ways ranging from delicate and introspective to physical and dramatic. Lead single “Cinder” sets the tone early: O