Album Review: Real Estate - "The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides and Other Detritus 2011 - 2025"

Real Estate are established enough of an indie rock band to release an album full of B-sides, songs from compilations, and unreleased cuts. Your enjoyment will certainly depend on how strong your bond is with the band's work but you'll hear gems regardless of prior knowledge.

Domino - 2025

Real Estate, the New Jersey based band have been jamming chilled, laid back indie rock and jangle pop for quite some time now. Believe it or not, but those early days of lead guitarist/vocalist Martin Courtney asking the question, "Budweiser, Sprite, do you feel alright?" on the pool floatie bobbing track "Suburban Beverage" were over fifteen years ago. Now we're in 2025 and the group is still kicking along with a revamped lineup and an album of refreshingly straightforward acoustic guitar-led songs that were released last year. Their catalog is impressively consistent, even including the band's deeper cuts. So why not package some of the band's most notable deep cuts, B-sides, and unreleased songs onto one album? Why not name it something like, say, The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides and Other Detritus 2011 - 2025...?

The Wee Small Hours covers songs from the band's Days era circa 2011 all the way to the current era of Daniel, their most recent album from last year. Some are properly released as B-sides, some are released on benefit compilations, some are even being released for the first time. As a big Real Estate fan myself, I'm quite familiar with the majority of the songs on here, aside from a handful I haven't heard much of if at all. As a full album, it can be a little weird to experience these songs back to back, ones from different eras and ones I've experienced as singles on their own. But listening to it in full multiple times, the album's flow is good and makes sense for the most part. It shows why some of these songs would remain off of albums, and why some stand among their best work. If you're a fan of the band, you'll love this thing and can't get enough of the majority of these cuts. If you're not familiar, then you may be scratching your head as to why you've pondered onto a B-sides and deep cut collection instead of their most notable and acclaimed albums like 2011's Days or 2014's Atlas. You should probably resort to these instead if you want to be introduced to the group and what they're all about. And might I also suggest their excellent debut self-titled album from 2009, which isn't presented on this compilation.

I'll try to start going through these tracks chronologically from 2011 to 2025. In 2011, we have some of the band's best work in their career and these tracks prove that to many hardcore fans, the stuff from the Days era is among their best and finest work. "Exactly Nothing," a B-side, is a beautifully graceful cut that is great on its own but doesn't exactly need to be on a full album. "Barely Legal," a Strokes cover for Stereogum's Stroked tribute compilation, is pretty fantastic. I haven't heard it until recently (and that may cancel me out as a big Real Estate fan) but you can hear the workings of this song strategically slowed down to Martin Courtney's forte. Hearing Courtney sing, "don't give a fuck" is pretty stark to hear coming out of his clean voice, but the track does go hard, even if its not in the swagger of a Julian Casablancas. On paper, it's pretty whack for Real Estate to cover The Strokes but in execution, it works way better than anyone could've thought. "In My Car" is one of the best cuts on here and for good reason. Days is stocked full of gems and "In My Car" could've easily snug onto it somewhere. It's a crime that it's not released on anything until now but I'm glad it's on here regardless. The guitar work is marvelous from ex-member Matt Mondanile, as expected. I do miss his guitar work and I can only imagine what the band would've looked like had he not done all those terrible things to women. Awful men will continue to be awful men, I guess! The same excellency in his guitar work goes for instrumental "Blue Lebaron," a B-side which is yet another great all-time instrumental from the band.

The unreleased cuts "Recreation" and "The Chancellor" were left off the album Atlas in 2014 and it makes sense as to why. They're both solid and bright on their own right but neither would've added anything to the already perfectly crafted album. "The Chancellor" is a nice psychedelic instrumental that sounds like the band is simply jamming in a carefree manner and not making anything truly profound. "Recreation" on the other hand is remarkably hypnotic in its pacing and grooves. Their infectiously fun cover of The Nerves' "Paper Dolls" will always be the band's most hard and fiery performance they've laid to tape. B-side "Beneath the Dunes" is notably absent on this album and the writing's definitely on the wall with that decision, being that this is Mondanile's song with his lead songwriting and vocals fronting it. Its exclusion doesn't take away the beauty of the track and that it's one of the band's best and creative moments. It's totally appropriate and fine to not promote him like that by including it, although it's head scratching that other tracks prominently involving him are being promoted, such as his lead songwriting on the instrumental, "Blue Lebaron."

Instrumental "Two Part, Part Two" from the 2017 In Mind sessions doesn't exactly blow me away but it's pretty regardless. The part that precedes it, "Two Part," is a bit more memorable and I appreciate its subtlety and Jerry Garcia-like vocal delivery. The band's cover of Television's "Days" (which apparently inspired the album title of the same name) is pure sunshine and color in its presentation. It's one of my recent favorites and Alex Bleeker's basslines are among his best. The group's cover of Elton John's "Daniel" (complimenting their album Daniel from last year) is light, breezy, straightforward and to the point. It's definitely not the band's finest moment by any means but a fun cover is a fun cover. On the other hand, "Pink Sky," recorded at around the same time as "Daniel," is absolutely fantastic. The entire song is groovy, smart, and hooky. Why this was not included on an album is beyond me but its bright synths and psychedelic guitar work would've stuck out like a sore thumb on Daniel. Instrumentally, it does sound like a cut that could've been on Courtney's 2022 solo album Magic Sign. It's by far one of their best newer songs in their catalog and it tops nearly all of the songs off of their previous album by a longshot.

The Wee Small Hours is a fascinating listen to see how Real Estate have progressed over time or have even stagnated in certain areas. Your enjoyment will certainly depend on how strong your bond is with the band's work but you'll hear gems regardless of prior knowledge. It shows that even some of the band's B-sides, deep cuts, and unreleased material matches up to their studio album material. And most notably, it shows that Real Estate are still a great band, one of the most consistently great bands among the sea of indie rock acts.

My Rating: 8 / 10

Favorite Songs: "Pink Sky," "In My Car," "Exactly Nothing," "Barely Legal," "Paper Dolls," "Blue Lebaron"