It’s often not like the movies. No big firework show. No declaration of inner turmoil. No late night riverwalk with the full moon above that changes your (or their) mind. Heartbreak is quiet and mellow – like a drive down the highway, with the distant city lights flickering and the radio muffled by the rolled-down windows to let your emotions simmer.
You know that yucky span of middle-America interstate where every exit is followed by a beat-up little town, hosting the old Taco Bell logo, sketchy gas stations, and potholes galore? Well, it’s probably most of America, but you can envision it, right? I feel like this scene and its idiosyncrasies are the exact ingredients MJ Lenderman uses to cook up his music. Common people, albeit weird and sometimes downright delusional, makeup most of the narratives that are sung on Lenderman’s work. It’s a combination of cynical humor and down-to-Earth observations of the world that creates a beautifully niche satire that resonates just right.
This Midwestern, yet universal experience is put to the max on Lenderman’s latest release, Manning Fireworks. The pandemic helped catapult Wednesday, the band Lenderman plays lead guitar for, and Lenderman’s own solo career into the spotlight following the sly wit of his 2022 release, Boat Songs. While a lot of his work seemed predominantly infatuated with humor in abstract scenarios (such as Michael Jordan having a hangover, a “stupid hat” straining a relationship and having a terrible time on the log ride at Six Flags), Manning Fireworks doubles down on this charm, with scattered melancholic zingers pumped up higher than Lenderman has ever woven so neatly before. This isn’t to say Lenderman has never tugged at the heart strings; it’s to say he’s perfected his writing on this new release.
Low-fidelity buzz and cracking vocals paint the soundscape, dripping with Southern influence, created with steel guitar lines and acoustic ballads. This homegrown style works so wonderfully with Lenderman’s words – something most apparent on the track “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In.” Distortion takes the backseat on this tune, letting the acoustic melody playout with grace while the electric guitars aid in the percussion of the song. Sparse woodwinds float around our ears, creating an atmospheric breeze in line with the isolation in Lenderman’s lyrics.
“Everybody’s walking in twos leaving Noah’s ark /
It’s a Sunday at the water park.”
Bluntly profound, yet grasping for meaning, Lenderman describes a breakup where the two have found themselves at opposite ends from one another. Not mad, not bitter, just on two different paths. It’s as if the whole world around him is full of excitement and fantasy when compared to his somber situation, but the reality is a little less spectacular than that. Everyone around him is moving, but with a tunnel-visioned monotony that isn’t any grander than his own life.
“We sat under a half-mast McDonald’s flag /
Broken birds tumble fast past my window /
You don’t know the shape I’m in.”
The final moments these two share together are not picture-perfect frames to be filmed. It’s a sad sight to behold under a meaningless McDonalds establishment. Birds don’t sing like they do in a Disney movie. They tumble down the side of Lenderman’s home in the most poetic fashion. Does he see himself in these birds? Is he hopelessly lost in his self loathing? Or, perhaps as supported by his “duckwalks” later mentioned in the song, he’s content with moving on from knowing this other person, drifting apart in their own distinct ways.
Lenderman seems to know the limits of his emotional intelligence at his age. Things come and go all the time, and even if for just a moment you feel like you’re floating, eventually you have to come back down. A friend may not know how to comfort you, so Lenderman lets us interpret his words with a solemn optimism: life might not be a blockbuster film, but if you know the shape you’re in, at least you can make a keepsake video diary.
Check out “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In” with a plethora of charming tracks on Lenderman’s latest release, Manning Fireworks.
