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Trace Mountains
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“And you’re off into the burning blue,” songwriter Dave Benton sings on “Ponies,” the centerpiece of Trace Mountains’ fourth full-length album, Into the Burning Blue. Decorated with retro textures and violet flowers, the album begins with the crackle of a fire, as if something is burning and hatching into a new form. As Benton grappled with the end of an 8-year romantic relationship, songs were pouring out of him quickly, often urgently, before he had logically processed the emotions himself. Collectively, the songs are imbued with a spectrum of weighted emotions. Still, the blue continued to burn, with each song adopting its respective hue — a violet reclaiming of passion, a deep sea blue of sorrow, the sky blue moments of relief and liberation when he comes up for air and sees hope on the horizon. The pressure of this period crystallized Benton’s adventurous spirit and self-renewal as he embraced new high-fidelity sounds and conviction. Writing routinely over a Roland CR-68 drum machine and enamored with the dramatic precision of 80s music, Benton enlisted Craig Hendrix (Japanese Breakfast) to bring his indie rock to immersive new heights. Out of Hendrix’s Philadelphia studio, “The Well,” the two employed synth-laden, reverberating atmospheres that enter the frame like layers of supernatural silk. The result is a pensive and playful collection of songs that gallop along Fleetwood Mac pop grooves with sharp melodies and signature 80s gated snare (á la Phil Collins).