Trace Mountains - HOUSE OF CONFUSION (2021)

Songwriter/vocalist Dave Benton started Trace Mountains as a low-stakes side project while his fuzz-damaged indie rock band LVL UP was active and taking up the majority of his time. When LVL UP disbanded in 2018, Benton began using Trace Mountains as a vehicle for exploring his musical identity, making the 2020 album Lost in the Country feel more effectively like a debut than the casual demos and offhand releases that preceded it. Benton's rapid development continues with House of Confusion. Released just about a year and a half after Lost in the Country, the folk underpinnings that sometimes play in the background of Benton's songs come to the forefront on many of these tracks. The record begins with gentle acoustic guitars and restrained drums on "Seen It Coming," with softly chiming vibraphone low in the mix. Dreamy pedal steel graces multiple songs, taking center stage on "If You Do" and supporting the catchy melodic turns of album highlight "7 Angels." There's a hard-to-ignore Neil Young influence throughout House of Confusion, as Benton melds his distinctive songwriting style with the same kind of rootsy, melancholic beauty that carried albums like Harvest Moon. The second half of the record diverges from this approach somewhat, getting into driving drum machine pop and misty two-chord grooves on "America" and "Eyes on the Road," and staticky lo-fi chamber rock on "Morningstar." Dazzling closer "Heart of Gold" winds the album's energy down with a steady beat, atmospheric production, and more twinkling pedal steel dancing with reverb-coated percussion touches. It's a beautiful end to an album where Benton's sometimes strikingly personal lyrical presence is balanced out by the understated musical arrangements of each song. House of Confusion doesn't feel any less intimate than earlier Trace Mountains material, but it moves with a little less urgency. Ultimately, it's this patience and thoughtfulness that make the songs connect on a deeper level than some of Benton's earlier work where the intensity of his emotional expressions could overshadow the rest of the songs. Especially on the more country-minded tunes, House of Confusion breathes deeply and allows for the ideas, sounds, and feelings to slowly come into view at their own pace.~House of Confusion Review by Fred Thomas