Mourning Dove, the moniker of Minneapolis-based artist Ryan Hedblom, announces his debut album, Roman Candle — a cinematic exploration of lost love, yearning, and self-reckoning.
Written, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered in solitude, Roman Candle captures the flickering emotional light between heartbreak and healing. Like the fireworks it’s named after, the record bursts with grandeur before dissolving into quiet reflection — a lingering afterimage of passion. A loosely narrative-driven album, Roman Candle traces the formation and dissolution of a relationship — a journey from the heartland to the West, from youth to its fading edge.
Influenced in equal measure by the singer-songwriters of the early 2000s, the alternative rock of the 1990s, and the Laurel Canyon troubadours of the 1970s, Mourning Dove fuses layered, shimmering guitars with tape-warmed textures and chamber reverb. The result evokes an sonic sunset — expansive yet intimate, nostalgic yet vividly alive.
Across the album, Mourning Dove vacillates between a smoky croon, hushed falsetto, and operatic belting, channeling the expressive range of Jeff Buckley while weaving harmonies reminiscent of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. With its expressive performances and self-produced intimacy, Roman Candle stands as a testament to creative independence — a down-the-barrel singer-songwriter statement that meditates on memory, nostalgia, and the way sound can hold time still.
