BY: JOEY REAMS
New York singer-songwriter Dave Benton has announced the Trace Mountains’ fourth studio album, House of Confusion, due Oct. 22 via Lame-O Records. This follows the band’s 2020 studio album Lost in the Country. This album was recorded throughout the pandemic in various locations, including a studio in the foothills of the Shawangunk Ridge in New York, a home along the Rondout Creek of the Hudson Valley, a Brooklyn apartment, and a small shared music workspace in Denver, Colorado. Along with the announcement, the band has shared the first single from the upcoming album, titled “America.” You can see the music video, directed by Trace Mountains guitarist Jim Hill, along with the tracklist below.
“‘America’ is a road song written from a place of disillusionment and desperation,” Benton said in a press release. “My guitarist Jim Hill created this video inspired in equal parts by Easy Rider, Wayne’s World, and The Lord of the Rings to mirror the themes of the song in jest. Writing and arranging this song was a real journey for us, with lots of rewrites and changes. I almost cut the song from the album at one point because it was torturing me so much! I wanted it to be real but also lighthearted and upbeat. I think Jim captured that energy perfectly in his visual interpretation of the song.”
“I was used to waking up early for my warehouse job, so when I got laid off, I just kept up that schedule and implemented another daily regimen focused on improving my guitar playing and writing songs,” Benton continued. “I was on the road in my mind, thinking back on my life as a musician—my successes, my failures—and I was reflecting on the ever-ongoing process of moving on that my life has been made up of. I just started writing songs about that feeling we all have, of suddenly waking up to a brief moment of clear-headedness, like “Oh wow, HOW did we get here?” I started thinking about that a lot and just approached the feeling from different points of view and different voices that felt relatable to me. A lot of that led back to images of the road.”
House of Confusion:
01 Seen It Coming
02 If You Do
03 On My Knees
04 7 Angels
05 IDK
06 The Moon
07 Late
08 America
09 Morningstar
10 Eyes on the Road
11 Heart of Gold