MJ Lenderman Croons Through Faults and Grace on Manning Fireworks

MJ Lenderman is a guy just like you and me. He likes drinking and playing Guitar Hero. Sometimes, he goes down an Instagram rabbit hole and stumbles on podcasts where alt-health influencers drink their own piss, as he told The Guardian. He cracks jokes that maybe mean more than they let on. He likes a guitar solo. This is what’s projected on him, at least.

In the two years since his breakthrough third album Boat Songs, a cult of personality has formed around Lenderman’s sly humor and songwriting that sometimes makes unique sports references. He was absorbed into the idea of “dudes rock,” a signal term for a non-threatening but still indulgent ilk of masculinity. Steely Dan, sitting on porches, feeling nostalgic about the one time your dad took you fishing—these things all fall under the “dudes rock” umbrella. As memes circulated and Lenderman’s profile grew, I was reminded of how, post-Blonde, Frank Ocean’s quiet, emotional masculinity was reinterpreted and watered down into the “soft boy” aesthetic. It became a costume to appear sensitive or self-aware, even if that wasn’t the case. And here’s Lenderman, a trucker hat-wearing, beer-drinkin’ shredder who will sing about basketball in a way that might make you kinda sad. “Is the cure to male loneliness MJ Lenderman?” a meme asks.

Lenderman could’ve taken the mantle of indie rock stardom in a much more obvious way. Instead, he quietly shakes off these expectations with his fourth album (and debut for ANTI- Records), Manning Fireworks. Where Boat Songs jumped into a guitar riff in its first five seconds, Manning Fireworks starts off bare and acoustic. This is a record about consequences, about the things that happen once you shake off your beer-buzz and face reality. Its characters are not the sports lovers or boat owners from Boat Songs. They’re drowning in debt after they impulsively bought a boat.

On “She’s Leaving You,” Lenderman takes the voice of a friend comforting a new divorcee. “Go rent a Ferrari / And sing the blues / Believe that Clapton was the second coming,” he advises. There’s a bit of irony in the way Lenderman stretches out the vowels on “Clapton,” as though Eric Clapton, guitar god and anti-vaxxer, is obviously the second coming—Lenderman satirizes the very “dude” that his music is associated with. Still, he’s not cruel, and “She’s Leaving You” is both hyperbolic and filled with empathy. Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman sings the title as the song pares back its parts. In those final solo vocals, she carries the weight of the song’s loneliness.

The caricatures continue throughout the record, as people comfort themselves with useless objects like “a wristwatch that’s a pocket knife and a megaphone” or “betting on horses named ‘Johnny Come Lately.’” Lenderman’s scenes toe the line between humor and shame and reckon with the shame and bad luck of passing out into a bowl of Lucky Charms; Cars’ Lightning McQueen gets “blacked out at full speed”; drink some water, it’ll “kill the need to puke,” as Lenderman advises on “Riptorn.”

Still, Manning Fireworks is never pessimistic. As self-destructive as Lenderman’s characters can be, they’re always funny in an insistent, hopeful way. It doesn’t matter if “you say I’ve wasted my life away,” as the narrator on “Wristwatch” admonishes. He’s still got that cool wristwatch. Lenderman summarizes this ethos best in “On My Knees”: “Every day is a miracle / Not to mention a threat.” As a lyricist, he writes songs where both feel true in equal measure. The music is both pitiful and reflective of our worst selves. You can’t help but root for them.

Lenderman recorded Manning Fireworks in spurts while he toured Boat Songs and on the road with Wednesday. The album came alive at Asheville’s Drop of Sun studio, the hub of all the excellent rock music coming out of the North Carolina city. But Lenderman doesn’t use the studio to beef up the crunched-up riff-rock of Boat Songs. Rather, he tempers it down into something autumnal and nostalgic. There’s more twang, more acoustic guitars and more brushes on the snare that cushions the beat. He eschews the tempting characterization of “shoegaze”; Manning Fireworks is an airier, cleaner album for muckier, more complicated stories. Instead of barreling guitars, Manning Fireworks focuses on what makes MJ Lenderman such an essential songwriter to begin with: his voice. You can hear the cracks in his delivery on “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In”; the snarl he suppresses on “Rudolph”; the way his drawl lengthens around the word “Riptorn” so it’s just behind the beat, as if he’s walking at a few paces slower than the drums.

MJ Lenderman is a compassionate narrator, finding humor and levity in the most pathetic of situations. On album closer “Bark at the Moon,” he sings about never leaving his room and staying up late playing Guitar Hero. He admits that “You’re sick of the shtick,” but still hopes that this person, nailing the notes of Ozzy Osbourne’s titular banger on expert, can also grow up. Lenderman lives up to his rising indie stardom, and Manning Fireworks confirms his status as a premier storyteller of broken hearts and bruised egos. But he also isn’t going to be anyone’s “dudes rock” champion. No one can simplify this album down to its drinks and hangovers. Lenderman considers the flaws of the dudes he writes about, seeing them at their worst and still giving them grace.

Andy Steiner is a writer and musician. When he’s not reviewing albums, you can find him collecting ‘80s Rush merchandise. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.