Benjamin Tod of Lost Dog Street Band Keeps it Raw and Personal on ‘Songs I Swore I’d Never Sing’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

On his latest solo effort, Benjamin Tod lays bare some of his rawest personal struggles yet in the beautifully stark Songs I Swore I’d Never Sing. Across 10 tracks, the Lost Dog Street Band singer touches on his own experience with addiction and self-harm, cutting off contact with someone close and having to shoot his dying dog; a culmination of tragedies that he’s finally committed to music.

“These songs are timestamps of my life,” he said recently detailing the significance of the album title. “They’re a list of fragile events… Some were written a decade ago and some were written right before I started recording, but for 10 different reasons — whether they were too painful or too personal or too pretty — I didn’t want to sing them as soon as I wrote them.” Though many of these songs that make up this album have been hanging around for a decade, he committed all to tape in about six hours, an impressive feat. 

Among the emotionally tough songs here is “Mercy Bark,” a strikingly heart-rending track about putting down his dog. Most of the songs here have minimal accompaniment, stripped of all unnecessary instruments only adding to the haunting nature of the record. His powerful voice is front and center and given a spotlight like never before. One of the most affecting tracks though is “Still Search For You,” a heartbreaking ode to his former bandmate, Nicholas Ridout, lost to addiction. You can hear the loss in the repeated chorus of “I still search for you in everyone else,” the pain still evident in Tod’s emotional delivery.

Coming out almost a year after the Lost Dog Street Band’s sixth album, Tod’s third solo album is an emotionally tough listen at times but will also be surprisingly relatable for many. While not for everyone, this challenging but powerful poignant album is bound to find the right audience.

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter