#241 — MJ Lenderman — Manning Fireworks (2024)
You’ve got to work hard to make rock this lazy.
It’s great that there are albums from 2024 here, even if I’m starting to feel like the first decade of this century may be overlooked by the Rolling Stone editorial staff. MJ Lenderman is, at time of writing, 25 years old. Given this list is about the last 25 years, then I am slowly crumbling into dust as I write this.
A lofi indie album from MJ Lenderman. A big country album from MJ Lenderman. Both at the same time, switching between Malkmus and Young with slide guitar work gently curling around the lyrics like smoke from a cigarette burning down in an ashtray on a bar.
Not that he’d remember that, the whippersnapper.
He’s funny too, “Please don’t laugh only half of what I said is a joke, every Catholic knows he could have been Pope”. This album’s got religion, even if it doesn’t want to.
This are portraits of parts of life I’d forgotten about as I trundle into middle-age. Doing a job wishing hours away because you’re not really in it. Hangovers that need to clear before you get on with the day. Relationships which break down as one outgrows another. Repeating a routine waiting for something to happen, not realising it’s you that makes it happen.
Then, right at the very end, he absolutely goes for it. The final track Bark At The Moon clocks in at 10 minutes, which is almost exactly a quarter of the album. The lyrics fade out after nearly 3 minutes and then the song drifts beyond structure into droning, buzzing, faint cycles of nearly something but never quite resolving.
MJ Lendermann — Manning Fireworks — 2024
Best Track: She’s Leaving You. Possibly the most radio-friendly track on the album, although none of it’s specifically bad for the airwaves.
Underrated Banger: Bark At The Moon. Ten minutes long. Wonderful.
You can find most of the tracks, for free, right here: https://www.youtube.com/@MJLendermanofficial/videos
