Once a perfect little baby/ Who’s now a jerk/ Standing close to the pyre manning fireworks. These are the last words on the sparse opener and title track of MJ Lenderman’s new album Manning Fireworks. It almost sounds like an elegy, grieving the loss of innocence, wondering how he ended up there. But as usual, it’s too irreverent and funny to be a requiem.
In 2022, the Asheville musician released his breakthrough solo album Boat Songs, a collection of twangy, reverb-drenched tunes with humor, groove, and feeling. It endeared him especially to music critics, who were also fawning over his guitar work in the critically acclaimed indie rock band Wednesday. It’s no surprise publications were painting him as the Next Big Thing (last year we proclaimed that he’s knockin’ on rock stardom’s door), yet in a recent interview with The Guardian, the 25-year-old rejected the spotlight: “Visibility and stuff, that’s not really something I’ve been after.” If it was, his music likely wouldn’t strike a chord the way it does. His songs yearn only to be played from a jukebox in a shitty dive bar where smoking is allowed inside and regulars trauma-dump on anyone unlucky enough to catch their eye. “Don’t move to New York City, babe/ It’s gonna change the way you dress,” Lenderman pleads on the phenomenal finale “Bark At The Moon,” proving his devotion to small-town antics as opposed to big-city artifice.
On Manning Fireworks, a couple sit under a half-mast McDonald’s flag, someone passes out in a bowl of Lucky Charms, and a wristwatch reminds its wearer that they’re all alone. In hotels, cum drains from the shower, and holes are punched in the wall. Along with the blacked-out Lightning McQueen speeding on last year’s preview “Rudolph,” Lenderman rhymes “Kahlúa shooter” with “DUI scooter” on “Joker Lips.” Even some song titles alone admit embarrassment, like “She’s Leaving You” and “On My Knees.”
In a landscape where music is viewed and discussed through a moral lens, Lenderman is a breath of fresh air, telling shameful tales of humiliation with a detached drawl and a self-aware smirk. There’s something precious about his characters reveling in being jerks, like how a relapse can be a relief. Sometimes, being pathetic can feel euphoric — deeming yourself too incompetent for responsibilities and therefore setting yourself free. No matter what these everyday folk do wrong, they see themselves as cosmic victims: “This morning wants to kill me,” Lenderman sighs on “Joker Lips.”
That Guardian interview ends with Lenderman’s succinct explanation: “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.” This is especially interesting in the context of our current culture where every mistake is immediately documented and shamed online, where every individual is held up to impossible standards. Behaviors are labeled as either good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, and there’s no room for messing up. Manning Fireworks, more than anything, strives for empathy and understanding over judgment.
On “Manning Fireworks,” the jerk opens the Bible in public in an attempt to pick up women. Lenderman sings, “And one of these days/ It will all end/ Your tired approach to original sin,” as if he’s God himself. Throughout the album, he relays existential contemplations, but only in the form of indecent rhymes, asking on “On My Knees,” “Is it the quiet hiss of a midnight piss/ Or a river turned to creek?”
Part of what made Boat Songs so special was its lo-fi charm, especially on the fuzzed-out rager “SUV” or the meandering, Sparklehorse-indebted closer “Six Flags.” Manning Fireworks abandons that completely. It’s definitely a loss to be mourned, as the unpolished sound mirrored the imperfections of mundane life Lenderman communicates in the songs. But Lenderman resonates as hard in this clean atmosphere as he does in the scrappy one. The antepenultimate track, “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In,” was originally posted on Lenderman’s Bandcamp in 2022, buzzing with ambient textures, Lenderman’s voice staticky and clumsy. On Manning Fireworks, the tune is less cluttered, more refined. Wednesday bandleader and Lenderman’s ex-girlfriend Karly Hartzman harmonizes with him — she contributes vocals on six tracks — and instruments gradually join in a miniature, delicate orchestra, like windchimes blowing in the wind.
The instruments on Manning Fireworks are bountiful: organ, drone, trumpet, clarinet, pedal steel, mellotron, trombone, and more. Lenderman shares players with fellow alt-country musician Merce Lemon, whose forthcoming album Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild has an instrument called a bojo, an ebow on a banjo that uses a slide on the fretboard. There are several instruments on the credits of Manning Fireworks that also cannot be explained by a Google search, such as a “slide bebo” and “bass clarinet abuse drone.” When I reach out to his publicist for information, this is the answer I receive from Lenderman: “A magician never reveals his secrets.” (Colin Miller, who plays the “slide bebo” on the album, reveals it’s the same as a bojo, only Lenderman picked a different name for it. However, Miller is unwilling to divulge what a “bass clarinet abuse drone” is. I sincerely respect the sense of mystery.)
Lenderman leans into country on the ballad “Rip Torn,” on which he advises, “You need to drink some water/ It’ll kill the need to puke.” The most magnetic moments, though, are the sonorous “Wristwatch,” “On My Knees,” and “Bark At The Moon.” It feels intentional that those gems haven’t been put out as singles and instead saved to blow the listener away. It’s especially true of “On My Knees,” which begins with crashing guitars, leading into Lenderman’s declaration: “Burdened by those wet dreams/ Of people having fun/ ’Cause I know going on vacation brings the worst out of everyone.” If that’s not enough of a hook, he follows it up with his signature philosophical rumination that quickly turns into a joke: “And every day is a miracle/ Not to mention a threat/ Of bees nests nestled in a hole in the yard/ Of Travolta’s bald head.” On “Wristwatch,” he shouts, “I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome.” I don’t need to know what that means to find it great.
“Bark At The Moon” is a strong finish with squealing guitars and plenty of quotable lines: “You’re in on my bit/ You’re sick of the schtick/ Well, what did you expect?” It’s an apt ending — blaming a person for still being around you even though they know how you are — a way of saying, “It’s not my fault for being this way; it’s your fault for staying.” As if to make us happy, the second half of the 10-minute closer is nothing but distortion. Well, what did we expect?
Manning Fireworks is one of the best albums of the year. If this summer was defined by Charli XCX’s hedonistic Brat, then we’re entering Manning Fireworks fall: the aftermath of the relentless partying, the hangovers that give everything a sad yet sublime texture, the flood of blurry memories from the night before. Manning Fireworks is a masterpiece about quotidian misery that’s as playful and comforting as a best friend.
Manning Fireworks is out 9/6 on Anti-.
