Review: Benmont Tench ‘The Melancholy Season’
By Jim Hynes
The whispering voice from a man who sounds as if he’s lived off the grid in the woods for the past decade is Benmont Tench, on the aptly titled The Melancholy Season. It’s been ten-plus years since the singer-songwriter released his debut, 2014’s You Should Be So Lucky. The vocals give his sophomore effort a genuine, unpretentious quality. Tench and producer Jonathan Wilson render the album with sparse instrumentation, making the songs intimate and full of space. But don’t fret Petty fans. There are rockers here to satisfy you too.
The core Tench band includes Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith on guitar and Wilson on drums, among other instruments. Sebastian Steinberg is on bass on several tracks. That the album appears on George Harrison’s Dark Horse Records, now in the care of his son Dhani and wife Olivia, maintains the strong connection that he and Petty had with Harrison.
Tench’s fragile voice over meditative piano and organ, and light rim shots from Wilson introduce the opening title track, a ruminative statement on yearning – “…the eucalyptus creaks and sighs/the wind whips round the compass/Orion holds his arm up high/the melancholy season is upon us.” Singer-guitarist Jenny O, who has worked with Wilson on two albums, appears on three tracks, including the snappy “Pledge,” where Tench plays a staggering array of keyboards as Wilson’s tapping mirrors the clock in a tune filled with verse after verse that begins rather existentially, later becoming a treatise against hate.
Then we get the rockabilly, boogie woogie piano infused “Rattle,” one more with a hefty amount of verses. Nonetheless, you’ll likely find yourself tapping your feet and singing along to the chorus “you unravel as you travel/you get tangled when you talk/but I like em with a screw loose/so’s they rattle when they walk.” Tench stomps along in “Not Enough,” playing a Hohner Planet, the signature keyboard sound on the Zombies’ 1964 hits “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No.”
On “If She Knew” Tench simply accompanies himself on the piano, as he sings with heartbroken resignation. Similarly, “You Again,” with Tench’s late-night piano, is graced only with Steinberg’s bass, as the singer delivers the coldest of goodbyes. The mid-tempo, defiant “I Will Not Follow You Down” has Tench’s piano chords as the foundation for a howling guitar solo from Jenny O while the twin guitars of Wilson and Goldsmith spur her on. Wilson sets an infectious groove while the other instruments create a droning effect over which Tench repeatedly pleads a lost lover to return in “Back.” He turns the tables a bit in “Like Crystal,” having to deal with a long forgotten lover who returns, only to his chagrin.
Two songs have longer histories. The especially minimal “Under the Starlight’ with touches of guitar and organ began 20 years ago as a collaboration with Grammy-winning composer Don Henry. Tench, with years of perspective, added two new verses. He seems grateful for his ability to deal with loss – “no nothing can hurt you/and nothing can help you/under the starlight/that cradles us all.” “Wobbles” first appeared as an instrumental on his debut yet somehow he wrote lyrics a day after the recording session, finally finding a place for it here as a piano trio. It has one of his best vocals, as he pays tribute both to a woman and Crescent City – “just to kiss her/as she wobbles/down esplanade.”
This overall theme of yearning plays out again in the dirge-like “The Drivin’ Man,” another example of spare arrangement and subtle dynamics that color the record. It’s almost the opposite of what you’d think in that he pays far more attention to the lyrics than the instrumentation. He closes in a practically spoken word reminisce in “Dallas” which benefits from the vocal harmony of Sara Watkins, an antidote to Tench’s snarling “Dallas, you’re a damn good town to leave.”
At times this album has a Leonard Cohen Songs from a Room feel, that of a lonely man reflecting on his past and pouring out his heart. Every so often, his rocking side emerges, but Tench continually retreats to his singer-songwriter contemplative posture. Keep listening. It will grow on you.
Pre-order the album HERE
“The Melancholy Season”
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