MJ Lenderman Delivers a Unhappy-Man Indie-Rock Gem With ‘Manning Fireworks’

Over the previous few years, Asheville, North Carolina, singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman has develop into each indie-rock fan’s favourite dude — the Craig Finn or Stephen Malkmus or Jeff Tweedy of the mid-2020s. He performs guitar within the nice North Carolina band Wednesday, and in 2022, he put out the implausible breakthrough solo set Boat Songs, piling offhanded, dirty noise on wry, laconic bangers and moaners like “Hangover Sport” and “Tastes Simply Like It Prices.” This yr Lenderman lent candy enjoying and vocals to Waxahatchee’s wonderful Tiger’s Blood.

He’s actually feeling himself on his new Manning Fireworks, leaning into the nation facet of his songwriting and the collapsing-back- porch ache in his voice — from the fiddle-scoured title observe to the Drive-By-Truckers-style roots rock of “On My Knees” to the woodsy prettiness of the Band-referencing “You Don’t Know the Form I’m In.” Manning Fireworks is a extra standard singer-songwriter album than Boat Songs, not as loud or as humorous. However it exhibits Lenderman additional carving out his distinctive house as a budding grasp of downmarket realism. The spotlight is the fantastically shabby rocker “She’s Leaving You,” considered one of a number of songs that get lit up by backing vocals from Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman. Lenderman sings a few man who wakes to search out his girl lengthy gone, however there’s no emotional development available right here: “Go lease a Ferrari/And sing the blues/Consider that Clapton was the second coming,” he sings earlier than the large refrain hits.

Hapless, emotionally stunted males like that present up in just about each track right here, and he tells their tales with homespun irony and droll empathy. On “Wristwatch,” he goes from dumpy brags (“I received a seaside dwelling up in Buffalo”) to obscure menace (“and a wristwatch that tells me you’re on their lonesome”). On the 10-minute nearer, “Bark on the Moon,” the man within the track is deep in his room enjoying the titular Ozzy Osbourne traditional on Guitar Hero because the world leaves him behind. Nice poets of sad-sackery, from Loudon Wainwright III to Paul Westerberg to Neil Younger, come to thoughts on Manning Fireworks. Lenderman takes that vaunted rock custom and spins it into one thing of his personal. In these songs, life is simply getting darker, drunker, and extra determined. By way of the music, that’s a very good factor.