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Roman Candle
The Wee Hours Review
V2
Roman Candle’s sophomore effort is the perfect summer album. Produced by Chris Stamey (The D.B.’s), The Wee Hours Review is an appetizing blend of sun-drenched jangle pop and soulful rock and roll. The thirteen songs here take place in the heat of late Friday nights, and they’re all populated by lonely buskers, broken down cars, married convicts, and people falling in love then falling right back out as they look down from the windows of airplanes. Set against a muscular and rootsy rhythm section, singer Skip Matheny’s throaty howl falls somewhere between The Small Faces’ Steven Marriot and The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson and on each number it comes in a breathless snarl, keeping each tune sizzling with a pressing urgency. “Something Left To Say” is a fiery hook-filled stomp; “You Don’t Belong To This World,” is an organ-soaked rocker which sounds like an update of “Under The Boardwalk”; and “I Can’t Even Recall” is an aching ballad sizzling with pure soul. Elsewhere, “New York This Morning” suggests the soaring alternative country of the Jayhawks, while the meditative closer “Driving At Morning” is pulsing with regret. Equal parts bluesy cowpunk (“I’ve Got A Reason”) and Stonesy swagger (“Baby’s Got It In The Genes”) The Wee Hours Review may be about the mess we make of our lives, but it’s also about sitting in front of the flames and just watching it all burn.
—Alex Green
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