Keyboardist, noted session player and founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Benmont Tench has a musical legacy that’s set in stone. Having helped propel key albums by Bob Dylan, John Cash and Green Day (amongst many others) to the higher echelons of the Billboard Charts, he’d be forgiven for kicking back and resting on past glories. However, his latest long player, The Melancholy Season (his first solo album in a decade), evidences an artist who is eager to explore new musical realms and serves up (lucky) thirteen tracks for our delight and delectation.

Despite this being Benmont Tench’s first album in an age, there is no impending sense of urgency to the opening (and title) track. It’s something of a quiet storm but that doesn’t make it any less powerful; keys hang like icicles in winter sun and contrasts nicely with Benmont’s oak-aged whiskey croak. This song (as with the whole album) will slowly ingratiate itself in your psyche and dig its roots deep into your soul, it’s otherworldly and seems to emanate as if from another dimension, a half forgotten dream or a vague memory of a former life. It means that when the following ‘Pledge’ arrives, it immediately shakes us from our revere; if you’ve noticed how time speeds past as you age, then that’s the rapidity with which ‘Pledge’ ticks. It’s a move that’ll characterise this album, suggesting that you always expect the unexpected and when the following ‘Rattle’ saunters in with a jaunty rockabilly beat, well, you can throw any preconceived ideas out the window.

The Melancholy Season is an album that tries on various clothes and what holds this eclectic collection of songs together is Benmont’s songwriting. A natural born storyteller, you can definitely hear the influence he had on the Heartbreakers (or vice versa) and subsequently each of these tracks becomes a novella, a slice of life played out within a three minute song. He understands that something very magical happens when certain words and sounds combine and that turns the likes of ‘Wobbles’ into three-dimensional experiences that will implant strong images in your mind’s eye. Bringing a sense of closure but also signposting a bright future, ‘Dallas’ would make the perfect accompaniment to a long road trip and ensures The Melancholy Season ends on a suitably whimsical tone.

Far from being melancholy, this is a playful, lively album that was certainly worth the wait but hopefully the next instalment in the Benmont Tench story will follow much sooner.

• The Melancholy Season is released via Dark Horse Records/BMG on 7th March 2025.
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Track List:

1. The Melancholy Season
2. Pledge
3. Rattle
4. Not Enough
5. If She Knew
6. I Will Not Follow You Down
7. Under The Starlight
8. Back
9. Like Crystal
10. Wobbles (Trio With Vocal Accompaniment)
11. You, Again
12. The Drivin Man
13. Dallas

Vinyl Track List:

Side A:

As above, tracks 1 through 6

Side B:

As above, tracks 7 through 12