Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
Boat Songs catapulted MJ Lenderman into the indie darling spotlight. His scrappy 2022 breakout is designed to listen in a plastic folding chair. On the collection of bashful, hook-driven songs, he reminisces about fishing, Michael Jordan, and dolphins. Listeners and critics devoured his nostalgic, beer-buzzed portrait of benign masculinity. But we all know high never lasts, and no substance is enough to permanently ameliorate the anguish.
On Manning Fireworks, Lenderman plummets back down to the mortal plane, grappling with overnight fame and loss of solitude. After brushes with the spotlight both as a soloist and in his equally adored band Wednesday, the Asheville artist retreats back into cozy Appalachia. It wouldn’t feel right to hear him perform at a corporate Live Nation venue; his songs are better suited for cash-only dives of questionable cleanliness. In fact, he bemoans cosmopolitan attitudes on the ten-minute-long closer “Bark at the Moon,” where he pleads with someone not to move to New York City because “it’s gonna change the way you dress” before trailing off into a blistering six-minute guitar drone.
Save rhyming “Kahlua shooter” with “DUI scooter” on “Joker Lips,” he’s largely dropped the bit. He trades the sports quips for brooding Bible references, trades fuzzy reverb for luscious strings. Each syllable still drips with ramshackle twang, only now filled with longing instead of ease. Minimally altered instrumentals fossilize his rickety, timeless sound. Emerging with a refined palette, he’s no longer the cheeky twenty-year-old from his 2019 self-titled debut, the lo-fi misanthrope on Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, or the deadpan DIY success story behind Boat Songs.
Rather than writing from his own experiences, he weaves together vignettes of flawed everymen. Each pathetic protagonist, who he sometimes calls “jerks,” hits their own version of rock bottom, even the reimagined Lightning McQueen drunkenly mowing down deer on “Rudolph.” The freewheeling melodies feel just as warm as Boat Songs, but the characters’ familiarity lies in their misfortunes, not successes.
“When you’re observing someone at their lowest, certain truths come out. Seeing people at their rawest, it’s easier to get in there and illuminate things about being alive,” he confessed to The Guardian. Parts of Lenderman and ourselves exist in each lonely and flawed persona on Manning Fireworks. The narrator splits with a distant partner “under a half-mast McDonald’s flag” on “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In.” After a night of drinking, a guy passes out in his bowl of Lucky Charms on “Rip Torn.” After succumbing to material impulses, the loser on “Wristwatch” clings to his online persona in the face of isolation. Lenderman may have bought himself a boat, but now he’s spending an arm and a leg on maintenance.
The ragged force behind Boat Songs guest stars on standout “On My Knees,” an anthemic concoction of his tried-and-true elements–piss jokes, an endearing voice crack, and whimpering pedal steel. Even at the depths of his or his characters’ spirals, Lenderman ties everything together with a self-deprecating laugh. “This is my quarter-life crisis,” he teased in a recent interview with NME. Lenderman recently split from Wednesday frontwoman Karly Hartzman, but Manning Fireworks isn’t a breakup album. He’s actually been playing some of these songs for the past year with his band, the Wind.
And don’t call it a “dudes down bad” album, depriving him of both his rich storytelling abilities and ability to reach across demographics. Maybe he’s not the fearless personality behind Boat Songs, but that doesn’t mean he holds a mirror to the people he writes about. Neither he nor his subjects beg for pity, just a few gracious moments of understanding.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
Manning Fireworks is out now on Anti-.
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Giliann Karon | @lethalrejection
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