ALBUM REVIEW: MJ Lenderman’s Latest Is an Insular Distillation of His Distinctive Talents

There was a homespun quality to Boat Songs, the 2022 album that won Asheville, NC-based singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman an unexpected avalanche of critical praise and hype. That time around, Lenderman came across as a natural-yet-iconoclastic Gen Z update to the slacker grunge and alt-country cool kids of the 1990s.

Fortunately, his new album, Manning Fireworks, strikes the right balance between returning to the foundations of Boat Songs and tugging his sonics and songwriting forward. Again, recording most of the instruments himself and with an arguably even stronger set of songs, Lenderman proves that the depth people saw in his songwriting, with all of its quirky references to sports and Bob Dylan lyrics intact, was quite real. There are plenty of down-on-their-luck characters concisely rendered here, from the middle-aged divorcee in “She’s Leaving You” to the drunk in “Rip Torn” drowning in his cereal. Lenderman’s ability to balance humor and pathos is unerringly precise (“Kahlua shooter/ DUI scooter” goes the sad clown in “Joker Lips,” “Deleted scene of Lightning McQueen/ Blacked out at full speed,” when a driver kills a reindeer in “Rudolph”).

Much of the appeal comes from how much Lenderman seems to identify with these characters and their foibles. At one point, he interjects, “please don’t laugh/only half of what I said was a joke.” This embodies the tragicomedy at the heart of his storytelling. 

As for the sounds and arrangements, Lenderman expands only a bit outside of the tried-and-true. While the guitar amps might be dialed back just a hair from the Exile on Main Street-style delirium of his previous record, Lenderman still solos with the might of Neil Young and the punk-rock upstart spirit of J Mascis. A richly melodic player and singer, there’s more than a whiff of Pavement, Teenage Fanclub, and peak-era Wilco in there too, particularly when he lands on a gorgeous hook or a supporting organ line.

Tweedy and company are also the most obvious influence behind the six-minute drone coda on the closing “Bark at the Moon,” but it sounds like neither the romantic swells at the end of “Reservations” nor the arty ambient nonchalance of “Less Than You Think.” Instead, Lenderman’s drone has an organic lightness to it, with a subtle sense of melodic variation and ease of approach that is all his own. Manning Fireworks is not likely to reach a wider audience, but that hardly seems to be the point. This is just the start of a rich body of work that could lead to a devoted cult audience for decades to come.

MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks releases Sep. 6 on Anti- Records.