Manning Fireworks
Manning Fireworks puts troubled people inside music that often feels easier than their lives. MJ Lenderman sings in a plain, slightly tired voice, letting awkward details and dry humour carry the stories. Country touches sit beside loose indie rock and rough electric guitar. The record is inviting without needing to make its characters more likeable or their situations less uncomfortable.
The opening title track moves as a ragged country waltz. Its fiddle and acoustic setting give a gentle shape to a portrait of someone whose behaviour deserves much less sympathy. Lenderman leaves room for both the joke and the person inside it. That balance stops the writing from becoming a collection of clever put-downs.
She's Leaving You makes a similarly ordinary musical framework feel useful. The chord sequence is familiar, but the changes in pressure and the guitar playing give the song an emotional identity. Wristwatch provides another strong riff, placing its lonely narrator inside a brighter, more immediately memorable sound. The words and the playing give each other something to work against.
The guitars become a larger force on Rudolph and On My Knees. Lenderman can move from a simple phrase into a ragged, distorted solo without making the performance feel like a demonstration of skill. Joker Lips offers a softer contrast through watery tones and country twang. The detail is often in the feel of a line rather than how much is being played.
Bark at the Moon makes the boldest demand on the listener's patience. Its account of isolation gives way to a long passage of feedback and drifting instrumental sound. After the tighter songs, that extended release changes the album's scale. It is less immediate than the material before it, but it follows the record's emotional withdrawal to a convincing musical end.
Lenderman's voice is limited as a showpiece, yet its unforced delivery is well suited to these stories. He sounds close enough to the people he describes for their failures to matter. Manning Fireworks draws much of its appeal from that relationship, with thoughtful character writing and guitar playing that can be comforting or abrasive as needed. It is a strong, distinctive meeting of alternative country and noisy rock.
