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It's
possible to separate Roman Candle's second album, The Wee Hours
Revue,
from its backstory, but metaphors of parables this apt should
be ignored only
with caution.
Wee Hours is a re-worked take on the Chapel Hill quintet's debut,
Says Pop,
released in 2002 to quiet critical clamor and re-recorded in
2003 at the behest
of Hollywood Records.
A few hundred large and three years later, the band was dropped,
record in hand.
At last, it's out, and--two years later than expected--
It's one of the best rock albums this year.
As such, it sounds like a long-in-the-tank catharsis, the sort
of album that's like
a release of desire, an exclamatory exhumation of comprehensively
developed
ideas long festering to see the light of day.
Clocking in at 52 minutes, it's an exhausting listen, conjuring
a marathon of shifting
dynamics and a holistic ode to the band's heroes' two-sides-of-vinyl
touchstones:
The Faces, The Replacements, The Beatles. Every song Skip Matheny
writes
seems destined to stick, too, 13 tracks all guided by the obsession-worthy
nature
of a pop masterpiece.
Here, producer Chris Stamey's immaculate taste goads that along,
embracing such
pop power by refining the songs and enunciating the turns while
delegating the Matheny family's clever cross-genre sonic fascinations
to bridges between songs.
As such, searing electric guitar-and-organ number "Another
Summer" is hinged to
blue-eyed-soul, Memphis-horns, British-keys builder "I
Can't Even Recall" with a
spoken-word sample fit for DJ Shadow.
The intro for "I've Got a Reason"--reversed samples
imbedded in a phased organ--spontaneously shifts into ripping
rock, Matheny howling about his new lease on life
thanks to his new, permanent lover.
It cascades into handclaps and the buzz of a warm tube amp,
eventually slinking into
the slow acoustic crawl of "Merciful Man," the album's
slowest and most redolent
moment.
Such continuity matches the seasonal, long-term approach of
the record: The
springtime sauce of "Baby's Got It in the Genes" comes
counter to the top-down
swill of "Something Left to Say." The autumnal tones
of the pensive "From an Airplane Window" are matched
by the winter-in-the-city nostalgia of "New York This Morning."
Seasoned by experience, aged by the industry, Roman Candle marched
across three Aprils to see this June release. It was worth the
wait.
--Grayson Currin
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