A solo debut is a different beast than a true debut. The distinction is clear in the last 45 seconds of the leadoff title track: that chord progression was built to support a falsetto, cello, a full quartet, anything. But Roman Candle gives Smith a chance to demonstrate tricks that the roar of Heatmiser couldn’t. “Condor Ave” and “No Name #3,” in particular, have the diagonal lilt of a drunk heading home. Still, amplifier stacks might’ve covered up fine-on-paper couplets like “you’re a crisis/ you’re an icicle,” from “Last Call”. What we now know about Smith’s gifts cause this record to be judged as a pop document. But his true aims weren’t entirely clear at this point, and to the wagoneers circling their fragile friend, this was good enough: a startling departure from his band’s grungy vector. With a couple collaborators, he could’ve had the career of a less literate Bill Callahan, or a less ambitious Kurt Cobain.

Now, however, it’s obvious that this is a tentative first step to something more grandiose. Save a couple contributions on the trap kit from Pete Krebs (billed as Kid Tulsa), it’s all Smith, holding a pickupless acoustic to a four-track’s microphone. He spikes the crawling melody of “Roman Candle” with knucklefulls of prickly electric, held to a nagging anger. “I wanna hurt him” is the hook, the sort of white-knighting Cobain saved for interviews and diaries, but it’s scary all the same. His electric adds a barroom brittleness to “Last Call”; too-precious imagery aside, it’s a seether, and handles its two climaxes with aplomb, finally cresting with the repeated line “I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me”. The clearest break from business is the closer, “Kiwi Maddog 20/20″. It’s an instrumental, riding the surf-style spring reverb, curling like cigarette smoke. The ambling higher end presages Smith’s more twinkling tunes on the records to come; such a nasty beverage hadn’t been connected to this good a recording since Baby Huey reminisced about Thunderbird at the end of “Mighty Mighty.”