MJ Lenderman
Manning Fireworks
Release Date: Sep 6, 2024
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Anti-
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Manning Fireworks from Amazon
Album Review: Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman
Great, Based on 10 Critics
Based on rating 4.5
Firmly securing him in the pantheon of great singer-songwriters, this album is the sound of an artist at the peak of his powers He may be just 25 years old, but Mark Jacob Lenderman seems to have packed enough into his career to count as a veteran. He’s been the guitarist in critically adored alt-rockers Wednesday since 2018, played on every track on Waxahatchee‘s wonderful Tigers Blood album earlier this year, and has also released three solo albums of his own. Another reason that Lenderman may seem older than his years is his uncanny ability to write about characters seemingly far removed from himself – be it the sad-sack divorcee or the guy who can’t tear himself away from his games console – and throw in musical references that can range anywhere from The Band to Oasis.
Based on rating 9/10
The Wednesday guitarist, fisher and deceptively poignant poet's voice wavers through the titular opening track with the frailty of its character's shame and their languor of defeat. The acoustic beginning to Manning Fireworks underscores Lenderman's refined vignettes -- featuring characters, places and events often hard to excavate and even more challenging to analyze. At the centre of "Manning Fireworks" is an antagonist who sneaks backstage to "hound the girls in the circus," scorns the world with their theology of original sin, and loses money at the race tracks betting on horses named after Steve Earle songs.
Based on rating 9/10
You're doubly in business if you happen to be an Asheville, North Carolina native and are usually just a short jog from the average musical genius. Whatever chemical runs in the water supply there that makes indie musicians just the right amount of crusty, MJ Lenderman has a monopoly on the supply; he is the face, soul, and guitar god of indie Mecca. His furious work with Wednesday is extraordinary, and his personal discography is a series of drunkenly intimate gems.
Based on rating 8.5/10
Asheville's MJ Lenderman knows innately what Sir Elton John let us in on some four decades back. Namely, that sad songs say so much. Part time member of Wednesday and also in high demand as a collaborator (see Waxahatchee's Tigers Blood of earlier this year), Lenderman here on Manning Fireworks foregoes direct humor in favor of slyer (and starker) truths.
Based on rating 4/5
'Please don't laugh / Only half of what I said was a joke', sings MJ Lenderman on Joker Lips, a twinge of disappointment in his voice. This is the everyman, heralded for riffing about Jackass and Dan Marino over the twang and hiss of countrygaze. On Manning Fireworks, he's not sure where that's left him - does he have something serious to say? Nothing here is as charmingly ramshackle as 2022's Boat Songs.
Based on rating 4.0/5
In which MJ Lenderman is hospitalized for approaching perfection Wednesday, whatever else you might say about them, were something new. The country-stained shoegaze sound was, if not quite a bolt out of the blue, at the very least a decent splash in a pretty placid pond. MJ Lenderman's solo work doesn't so much seek to be that as to give new voice to the moody slacker-rock of the 90s, the music of introspective cynics bedecked with tattered thrift-store sweaters and dog-eared Bukowski copies.
Based on rating 1/10
Mark Jacob Lenderman, who performs as MJ Lenderman, has been in high demand in recent years. An Asheville, North Carolina native, MJ Lenderman has earned a name for himself in his own right. He is also the lead guitarist for Wednesday, which garnered even more acclaim following last year’s Rat Saw God. He has played with local musicians (Indigo De Souza) and even those just passing through (Horse Jumper of Love).
Opinion: Fantastic
Photo by Charlie Boss MJ Lenderman has a voice built for earnestness, a creaky tenor with holes worn thin where the emotion rubs. Listen with half an ear, and it sounds like he's confessing to you: romantic disappointment, bad choices, bars and lies and gadgets that overcompensate for the empty spaces in his heart. Listen harder, and the writerly part of Lenderman's art starts to come through, the clever twists, the novelistic details, the detachment.
Opinion: Excellent
MJ Lenderman has been a core part of the American indie rock landscape for a decade now. A key member of Wednesday, he's also spent time with Indigo De Souza, while his own solo catalogue is well worth exploring. 'Manning Fireworks' - his fourth solo LP - could be the point where MJ Lenderman is placed firmly centre-stage: a riveting song cycle, it's tight-but-loose feel and lyrical introspection feels perfect for Autumn listening.
Opinion: Excellent
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 available now