Today (January 23), lauded singer/songwriter Benjamin Tod announced his next album, Vengeance and Grace. A new take on the double album concept, the new LP will feature two renditions of each song on the tracklist. Fans will get a full-band version and a solo acoustic version. This allows Tod to cater to fans who enjoy his older acoustic material and his new, more honky tonk-leaning material while still delivering the raw and honest songwriting both sides of the fanbase have come to expect. Watch the video for the solo acoustic cut of the title track below.
Videos by American Songwriter
Ahead of today’s release and announcement, Tod sat down with American Songwriter to talk about his life, new career directions, and the new LP. During the conversation, he shared his thoughts on “Vengeance and Grace (Alone)” and why he wanted to tie it to the announcement.
Benjamin Tod on “Vengeance and Grace”
I’ve had several conversations with Benjamin Tod and found that he’s an open book. So, when I ask him about his favorite song on an album, I know he’ll have a quick answer. This time around, when I asked, he almost immediately named the title track.
“I would say, from my own personal perspective, it is one of the greatest songs I ever wrote. Every record, I write one song, and I go, ‘There’s the goalpost now. It just widened,’” Tod says. While he maintains that the title track from last year’s Lost Dog Street Band album, Survived, is still the best song he’s ever written, “Vengeance and Grace” holds a special place in his heart.
The song, he explains, “conveys a part of my soul that I needed to express. A deep, deep, dark and beautiful process of vengeance and grace sort of continuously moving in and out within each other and destroying and rebuilding an individual.”
Originally, Tod and his team had decided to drop another song with the announcement. However, he chose to go with “Vengeance and Grace” just weeks before today’s release. “I think that it’s important at the onset of this campaign to throw a punch, to go ahead and get it out there. I’m really big on the live show being represented with songs that people know. I want them to enjoy it and be able to sing along with the music,” he explains. “In general, I’d like ‘Vengeance and Grace’ to have a few months for the public to really chew on it. When we hit that first like that first night of the tour, I want people to know it and be able to sing along with it and feel it,” he adds.
Tour and Album Information
Benjamin Tod and In-Line Six will hit the road on April 16 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, at the Ozark Music Hall. The trek will keep them on the road until it comes to a close in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the Mill and Mine on October 25. Tickets and more info are available on his website.
Vengeance and Grace will hit record store shelves and digital streaming platforms on April 17 via Thirty Tigers. Pre-order or pre-save your copy today.
Featured Image by Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.