A singer-songwriter from Gainesville, Florida, Ben White, is releasing his first full-length album titled Men as Trees Walking on August 25th. The album was produced, engineered, and mixed by Greg Perkins and mastered by Ed Brooks (Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie, Courtney Marie Andrews, Adrianne Lenker).

 And he looked up and said, “I see men as trees, walking.”

- Mark 8:24

 This passage from the Bible is spoken by a man whose blindness was first only partially healed; therefore, he couldn’t see things clearly for what they really were. The man’s awareness of his distorted perspective resonated with Ben. While writing the songs for this album, Ben was also processing his exodus from evangelicalism. As the son of a pastor, he spent a lot of time in churches, eventually becoming a music pastor himself. In 2010, Ben left the church and has since spent years unpacking his own spiritual deracination. “The allegory and metaphor used in the songs allowed me to mask the true story. I became fearful that honesty and transparency would increase my loss and hurt. The songs gave me space to process what I was going through and say it publicly without having to openly discuss it.”

Ben has always had a way with words regarding his songwriting. With his album Men as Trees Walking, he vulnerably proves to not stray far. Though translucent, the album’s main themes are poignant and available to those who look. A song like Dust captures the emotion of losing your self-worth and confidence to a prefabricated identity. At the same time, Arrows acknowledges a new understanding of the finality of death. The resentment in Tower of Babel, the forgiveness in Rocking Chair, and the protest of Salvation are all manifestations of the historical swamp that Ben has been trudging through.

At the encouragement of producer Greg Perkins, the tracking for the album mainly began at a church in 2020. Surrounded by modern iconography and ideology, the memories that wrote these songs began to surface for air, bringing back emotional texture that Ben had not felt in a long time. In a way, it may have been the perfect space to make these songs permanent. A reclamation of life. The beginning of restoration and healing.