It’s Memorial Day Weekend and everyone is starting to keep an eye out for their summer jam, the song that for most people will define the summer of 2009 for them, for better or for worse.

Enter Roman Candle, a breezy indie-rock group who enjoyed critical acclaim with their debut “Wee Hours.” They’ve returned with “Oh Tall Tree in the Ear,” which has the single “Eden was a Garden.”

It’s the first track of the new album and it opens with a Flaming Lips-sounding guitar strum, followed by lead singer/guitarist Skip Matteny going into a sort of rolling lyric: the kind that rolls so quick past you that you aren’t sure what he’s saying.

It doesn’t matter. The rhythm is easy and the perfect song to come in midway through the summer roadtrip, the point when you aren’t quite sure if the trip is going to be cool. Then this song comes on and you suddenly feel like you’re in an indie film and that the path you’re on is leading you to something crazy and memorable.

Much of the album feels the same way, injecting an easy lyric and sound and getting out before you realize what just happened (which also makes it the perfect roadtrip album since it reveals itslef through multiple listens.

And even though it’s early, there’s an optimistic feeling after listening to the entire thing that this is merely the beginning to a summer of worthy music.

Roman Candle “Eden was a Garden”

(though these are it for now, according to the band’s MySpace, I have to believe more shows are coming…)

May 26 2009 8:00P PASTE MAGAZINE and WOXY PRESENT: Roman Candle and The Deep Vibration at The Summit Columbus, Ohio

May 27 2009 8:00P PASTE MAGAZINE and WOXY PRESENT: Roman Candle and The Deep Vibration at Club Cafe Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Jun 20 2009 8:00P City Stages Birmingham, Alabama

Jun 25 2009 7:00P Turley Park – Sunset Series – SIU Carbondale, Illinois