Brendan Benson Preps Next Album for March

Brendan Benson's career has been moving awfully slowly or awfully quickly, depending on how you look at it. For instance, he took seven years after his first record to make a second one; on the other hand, that delay was a result of trouble with his Virgin Records contract. Indeed, no sooner had he made that second album (2002's Lapalco) than former Virgin Records owner Richard Branson signed Benson to his new label, V2. Even Wilco had more trouble bouncing back than that.

The Alternative to Love comes out March 14th in the UK and March 22nd in North America; Benson finished it some time ago but had to wait several months for a release due to what his website calls "certain (boring) circumstances." Sounds like that new contract's working wonders! Tracks:

01 Spit It Out
02 Cold Hands Warm Heart
03 I Feel Like Myself Again
04 The Alternative To Love
05 Pledge Of Allegiance
06 Them And Me
07 Biggest Fan
08 Flesh And Bone
09 Get It Together
10 Gold Into Straw
11 What I'm Looking For
12 Between Us

A single for "Spit It Out" will grace British display racks on March 7th, presumably to capitalize on fans who are all psyched that Benson has just toured their country and no place else. Lucky stiffs:

02-21 Edinburgh, Scotland - The Venue
02-22 Leicester, England - The Charlotte
02-23 London, England - 100 Club
02-24 Stoke, England - Sugarmill
02-25 Liverpool, England - Zanzibar
02-26 Cardiff, England - The Barfly

Benson's new cachet may be getting a boost from his friendship with Jack White, who has talked about recording the next White Stripes album in Benson's home studio. White and Benson have also collaborated on several songs-- reportedly enough material for an album, but at this point plans to release them remain nebulous. Talking to MTV News, Benson said, "It's weird, man. There's stuff on there that sounds like Cat Stevens, and there's some stuff on there that sounds like Led Zeppelin." He declined to elaborate whether he would be voting for Richard Nixon or challenger George McGovern in the upcoming presidential election.