by Corey Sustarich
Larger than the sum of its parts, Trace Mountains’ Lost in the Country is honest and lasting. Each little hook, vocal flair, snare hit is its own apple in the press. A few short and sweet sips that go down refreshing and gorgeous, complex and swirled together absolutely. Dave Benton built the music on struts of sturdy wood twisting unique by the shouldering of life. The songs keep an enduring pace, excited to get moving, even if it’s just to the woods out the front door. The drum kit hikes the path so the lyrics can admire the world and the melody can whistle along the way. It’s hard not to formulate comparisons to nature with this music. It sounds like a summer day remembered in the middle of a long spring. When sweating days feel like secondhand memories or pictures only strangers take. But then the sun plays warm on skin and the next song comes on.
For those who found Benton’s music through LVL UP it will feel familiar but sharpened. The lyrics are more direct, the music inflowing, and the construction indelible. The words aren’t as masked with metaphor. Plainly spoken observations of the self fizz as poetic as any calculated metaphor. There’s a hopefulness buzzing between the words that is countered by a transitional fear melted in warm introspection.
“I use the venue WIFI. I check my email twice as I sat and cried. The singer from the other band asked if I was alright and they sat with me awhile in the cool dark country.”
The production glimmers clean and big, a crisp new sound for Trace Mountains, thanks to Brooklyn’s Studio G. The guitars are sometimes effected but only enough to create mood and never stand in the way of the album’s lush woodiness. The notes climb the topography of Benton’s well-structured map. Orchestral strings beam gold on both “Me & May” and “Dog Country.” The curly lick at the center of “I am Leaving You” clambers up and up and up like a resolute vine skirting gravity’s earthly demands. Drums are wide and pivotal. They are the roots of the hearty trunk and, when examined, that trunk is carved with loving initials. And those initials are not just Benton’s. He credits Jim Hill (Slight Of), Greg Rutkin (LVL UP, Cende), Sean Henry, and Susannah Cutler (Yours Are the Only Ears) as main contributors to the album.