Album Review – Benjamin Tod’s “Vengeance and Grace”
Traditional Country (#510), Singer/Songwriter (#570.15) on the Country DDS. AI = “Clean”
Pointedly opinionated, attitudinal, quick to pass judgement, increasingly polarizing, and predisposed to scathing rants, Benjamin Tod is a songwriter who seems outright incapable of diluting his heavy emotions, or checking his principles for a more pragmatic approach to life. In many respects though, that’s what you want from your favorite songwriters—vessels of raw feelings threatening to boil over or burst at any moment, and pile-driving that passion into their songs.
And as Benjamin Tod illustrates on his new album Vengeance and Grace, there is no bigger critic and villain to Benjamin Tod than Benjamin Tod. As quick as he might be to point the ugly finger of fault towards others, he’s even quicker to turn it upon himself. Recognizing his hard-headed disposition and faults, he’s willing to commit to the personal work of resolving them by codifying that struggle in song.
That is what Vengeance and Grace is about—attacking those parts of yourself that present self-defeating weaknesses, but also not being so hard on yourself (or others) that you veer into self-destruction. Tod not only illustrates this in the lyricism of this album’s 10 songs, he also does this by recording each of them both with a full band, and then acoustically as sort of a “hawk vs. dove” creative expression, highlighting the duality of his disposition.
The former frontman of the Lost Dog Street Band who blew up viral via videos on Gems on VHS and Western AF has since tried to mature and evolve with his music. His last album, and his first really stepping foot in the country realm called Shooting Star was an exploration of the country genre and its various eras and influences, re-familiarizing himself and perhaps his audience with country, while also working to reclaim the genre from the creatures on Music Row.
As enjoyable as Shooting Star was, Vengeance and Grace feels much more like a true Benjamin Tod project with Benjamin Tod songs, just rendered through a country band as opposed to the underground string band sounds that the Lost Dog project was best known for. This results in a “best of both worlds” scenario for many Benjamin Tod fans who crave those serrated, incisive and insightful lyrics, but love to hear country fiddle and steel guitar backing him.
Billy Contreras and his fiddle are all over this record produced by throwback country extraordinaire Andrija Tokic. Tod calls his new live band The Inline Six after he put the Lost Dog Street Band on indefinite hiatus since his wife and primary band mate Ashley Mae announced she was having the couple’s first child.
Though the folks who love Benjamin Tod would lean on his vocal delivery as one of his strengths, the way his voice comes across as forceful and fairly dry doesn’t fit everyone’s sensibilities. But Vengeance and Grace really seems to find the sweet spot of Tod’s tone, especially the full band songs. A song like “It’s What You Meant” with its strong melody really brings out the hidden beauty in Benjamin’s voice, yet without sacrificing its rugged appeal.
Any complaints about the Vengeance and Grace experience might be procedural. These songs are rendered so well in the full band aspect, when you get to the acoustic tracks, they can feel a little thin. Maybe you could have put the acoustic songs first. Maybe if you have a vinyl copy, you can just flip it around. But country fans should also be cognizant that to many long-time Benjamin Tod fans prefer him stripped down and acoustic. He not only tried to illustrate both sides of himself through this album, but satisfy both elements of his fan base.
We all have an angel on one shoulder, and a demon on the other, good and bad days, beautiful and malevolent tendencies we’re always trying to wrestle with and balance. With artists and songwriters, that battle just often plays out in public. It might not always be pretty. But it’s also often essential to tapping into those most pure of emotions that then render themselves in the most compelling songs—songs like you’ll find and in two different versions on Vengeance and Grace.
Vengeance Grade: 8.3/10
Vengeance and Grace: 8.1/10
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April 22, 2026 @ 12:31 pm
This guy’s schtick is just sliiightly more exhausting than his music is good.
April 22, 2026 @ 12:39 pm
Great review, Trig. I agree with everything you said in this article. I love this album and think I’ll only come to love it more with time. Agree or disagree with the things Benjamin Tod says, there’s no denying the honesty, vulnerability or heart-felt soul of these songs. I can’t wait to catch my first Benjamin Tod show when I’m in Bloomington, IN (home of the National Champion Hoosiers!) two weeks from tomorrow.
April 22, 2026 @ 12:58 pm
Ashley Mae’s vocal harmonies would’ve sweetened up this record some.
April 22, 2026 @ 5:43 pm
Great review Trig! This album really hits home for me. Album of the year contender in my book.
April 22, 2026 @ 6:51 pm
It’s no shooting star.
April 22, 2026 @ 10:37 pm
“Vengeance and Grace” has everything I want in a country album. A brilliant album. However, the band part is what makes the album for me. The solo versions have more of an outtake character than seeming like an equal second side of the album.
April 23, 2026 @ 2:46 am
The challenge I have with him is that he has made it difficult to like him with the dumb beefs and that becomes a problem when most of the songs say “I” in most of the lines. Singing about yourself is easy, but some folks don’t want to hear you singing about yourself if they struggle to like you.
April 23, 2026 @ 6:49 am
That dude is a total kook who needs to mature and mind his business. He exudes the type of holier than thou attitude that repels me from even giving him a chance. He once flipped out on me over a very respectful yet critical comment I made on his Instagram. Dude needs to grow up.
Thanks for the review though. You have a great way of being impartial in a world where that seems to be almost impossible for some people
April 23, 2026 @ 7:41 am
He has an ego that reminds me of Charley Crockett. I get it, you need to make money and keep up with an image. But, please stfu and play music.
April 23, 2026 @ 8:42 am
I got in to Benjamin Tod’s music late after seeing “Wyoming” on youtube. Really loved LDSB “Survived” record and as someone who prefers more country/bluegrass sound than his earlier sound this is a homerun for me. I even tried going back to earlier LDSB albums and they sound like shit.
It took me a while to finish the album as “Vengeance and Grace” I kept playing over and over till my wife said to to change it to another song. Love the fiddle on this album and overall thought it was really good.
Don’t really know Ben or follow him on social media but he’s made 4 straight records that I’ve enjoyed and I would say I’m a fan.
April 24, 2026 @ 5:28 am
Another flop.
April 24, 2026 @ 6:58 am
BT is a long time fav of mine. He is given to quasi political rants and they can be tedious. Not for the reasons you think though.. see BT is inherently right wing.. but he knows deep down that that is anathema to having a career in music, which is shot through with liberals and leftists, so he feels the need to equivocate and do the whole both sides thing. Like hey don’t worry I’m not one of those bad people, I’m really just a centrist and I push on both sides and their excesses however contrived it seems.
The problem is if you explore the themes of BT’s music for more than just a cursory glance, it’s obvious that he has very traditional (RW) values. He explores themes of good and evil and is constitutionally against the self absorbed and masterbatory, nihilistic nature of modern man. This is also why he has the aesthetic that he does which is old timey and longs for a time when man was more rooted not a completely deracinated cog living a purely consumerist existence. However, this perspective has been so completely defeated and socially engineered out of existence, he doesn’t have the scaffolding on which to make this stand so he ends up rambling and meandering and groping in the dark at something that he can still see the shadowed outline of.. but can’t find the language to express.
You can tell a lot of this has been beaten out of him by the way he took his confederate flag off of all his videos. It’s a small example, but it’s indicative of a larger program by which the white southern, often Scots Irish, Appalachian man has been purposefully alienated from his own cultural heritage and only allowed to exist in this narrow frame that doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings and is completely neutered and subservient to the forced egalitarian and emancipatory norms of secular modernity.
April 24, 2026 @ 8:14 am
I understand what you’re saying here, but it also feels like there’s a little bit of paralysis by analysis going on here. My job as a music critic is to put all the extraneous noise aside and simply focus on the music. I am cognizant of all the extraneous noise, and that’s why I discourage artists from lending to it in a way that can distract from their music. That’s why I opened this review like I did. But I think the music is where you truly find the measure of someone’s core beliefs.
I would also push back just a little bit on the notion of “both sidesing” because I get accused of this as well. It’s not always that you’re trying to play both sides. It’s often that you’re not represented by either side, and that is now the vast majority of Americans. There is an obsession with wanting to label musicians based on binary political notions when really that not how any of us think.
April 24, 2026 @ 9:59 am
I’m one of the haters because I don’t like any of it, not the song writing, not the vocal affectations, and not the stupid attitude of persona that he gives off. I actually almost went to see him recently just to see if I’m wrong (it ended up not working out for personal reasons but I really have tried to give it a chance)
Started listening to this album and I couldn’t finish it because the song writing is just SO FUCKING BAD. I don’t care what he’s actually singing about, it’s how he uses language. It’s like completely sophomoric shitty singer-songwriter writing with almost no nuance or interesting use of language. He breaks sentences in the middle in awkward ways, he uses way too many eye statements instead of painting a picture the way that the best country music does, etc.
I feel like part of why people think it’s “heartfelt” is because he just kind of bluntly comes out and talks about how he feels in I statements that sound like social media posts or a conversation with a therapist or something. I get that that might be really refreshing but to me it just feels really unfinished and awkward and like it needs polish to be called good songwriting. And again, the breaking the sentences in awkward ways and rhyming things that don’t really go together, even as near rhymes, just keeps me from enjoying this or any of his other songwriting.
April 24, 2026 @ 10:12 am
“I statements” not eye…
April 24, 2026 @ 11:27 am
The evil eye pops up now and then.
April 24, 2026 @ 10:23 am
I do not know much about Tod the man but really enjoyed his recent live album. I am really enjoying this album. Great production. Love the fiddle playing. Great songs and vocals. I prefer the songs with the band but only just. Really interesting to hear the songs with and without the band. It does show how good they are. This is a country album with attitude. Great album.
April 24, 2026 @ 11:11 pm
It seems that we are supposed to know why you’ve given this album two scores. After reading the review twice it seems that songs are repeated twice (?) and you refer to each instance as if they were a different album (??) or that “vengeance” is only the full band version and “and Grace” is the full album (???), it’s never actually explained anywhere here.
April 25, 2026 @ 7:38 am
As I said in the review, “Any complaints about the Vengeance and Grace experience might be procedural. These songs are rendered so well in the full band aspect, when you get to the acoustic tracks, they can feel a little thin.”
I just think that if you listen to the album as a whole, it’s difficult with the way the acoustic tracks are sequenced second. So I basically said, “Okay, consider it like two separate albums,” because it didn’t feel fair to hold back “Vengeance” just because of the acoustic tracks, and there was nothing inherently wrong with the acoustic tracks, only that it’s difficult for them to hold your attention, especially after hearing the full versions.
I mean, I guess I just don’t know how else to explain that. I’m taking two, 10-song albums and saying that it’s okay to consider them separately for grading purposes.
April 25, 2026 @ 11:56 am
Interesting, I had the opposite reaction. I liked the alone tracks so much better. I think you hear the real emotion in his voice. Dude is a hot head but he went through a lot to get where he is at. I appreciate he is keeping alive the real country sound.
April 25, 2026 @ 8:19 am
Not feeling it, his voice keeps getting in the way.
May 10, 2026 @ 10:31 pm
“…he also does this by recording each of them both with a full band, and then acoustically as sort of a ‘hawk vs. dove’ creative expression…”
Reminds me of how there have always been two sides to Shakey; he can write an album like Harvest or Silver & Gold but then also lay down rockers like “F*!#in’ Up” or “Rockin’ In the Free World”.
May 12, 2026 @ 11:25 am
Shouldnt we be judging benjamin on his music , not whether hes a good or bad person. Im sure hes no Donald Trump.