Whether as the lead guitarist for Wednesday, the Asheville band fronted by ex-girlfriend Karly Hartzman, or backing up Katie Crutchfield on Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood, MJ Lenderman seems to thrive on collaboration. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that, on this third solo album, Manning Fireworks, he sounds disgusted with others to the point of wanting to be left alone forever. “I’ve never really left my room/I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero,” he proclaims on the closing track, “Bark at the Moon,” just before an abrasive six-minute feedback-driven drone kicks in, as if to signal that it’s time for everyone else to get the hell out.
Manning Fireworks is indeed something of a solitary affair: Lenderman performed most of the album himself, centering his rusty nail guitar work and laidback drawl, with a few scattered contributions from friends, including Wednesday bandmates Hartzman on backing vocals and Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel. You can’t blame Lenderman for enjoying his own company if the alternative is spending time with the drunks, letches, and losers who populate these songs.
The opening title track, a ramshackle country waltz complete with sawtooth fiddle, has nothing to do with Peyton or Eli. The subject is the kind of scumbag who goes on biblical rants while betting on horse races and harassing women, who even “the dogs seem to hate.” Elsewhere, “She’s Leaving You” is a portrait of a man who claims that he’s only been spending time in Vegas because he likes the lights (unsurprisingly, his wife doesn’t seem to buy it). On “Rudolph,” over a blunt-force riff in the vein of Rat Saw God’s “Chosen to Deserve,” Lenderman imagines Pixar’s Lightning McQueen blackout drunk and mowing over the eponymous reindeer.
This is a far cry from 2022’s Boat Songs, a taut but breezy rock album that suggested an alternate universe in which Jason Molina and Vic Chesnutt traded depressive existentialism for nerdy sports references. Manning Fireworks, though, is much less of a downer than one might expect from an album that trawls the depths of humanity for people who spend their time passed out in their cereal bowls and “burdened by those wet dreams of people having fun.” There’s enough dry sarcasm in Lenderman’s voice that if you can’t feel a little bit of sympathy for the alienating weirdos he sings about, then you can at least laugh at them.
At the very least, the vitality and enthusiasm that comes through in Lenderman’s guitar work throughout Manning Fireworks is undeniable. His playing isn’t particularly flashy or technical—it’s all in the feel. “She’s Leaving You” utilizes one of the most common chord sequences in rock history, but his use of dynamics alone grants it a unique emotional tenor.
On “Joker Lips,” Lenderman’s watery guitar tones and twanging licks are comforting enough to make a lyric like “Draining cum from hotel showers” sound almost pleasant, while his ragged, distorted solos rip like lightning bolts through “Rudolph” and the Crazy Horse-aping “On My Knees.” If Manning Fireworks is what all those nights playing Guitar Hero have wrought, then here’s hoping Lenderman never leaves his room.
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