Trace Mountains

"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 in quick succession, often urgently before he had logically processed the emotions himself. Collectively, the songs are imbued with a spectrum of weighted emotions, but 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 end result is a pensive and playful collection of songs that gallop along Fleetwood Mac pop grooves with sharp melodies and signature 80s gated snare (a la Phil Collins). The album still tumbles through Benton's endearing observations, maintaining the candor that's drawn people to his songwriting since his early work with indie rock band LVL UP. Opener "In A Dream" best encapsulates Benton's movement through the darker shades of blue. Spanning seven minutes over a deep synth beat, the song follows Benton through a frantic nighttime bike ride as he peers through the windows of a suburban capitalist America, as well as the windows of his own mind. When an overlapping inspiration of David Lynch's noir thriller Blue Velvet and Bruce Springsteen's 1987 album Tunnel of Love coalesced, Benton set out to create an ominous world driven by synth leads and his stream of consciousness. The apex of the song is a triumphant exhale. "We wanted that moment to feel like coming out of a dark tunnel," Benton remembers. "I think we achieved it."