Joker Lips

MJ Lenderman is for the losers, the fuck-ups, the perpetually hungover, those who see themselves in fallen-star sportsmen, and those who worry about their barbecues on stormy days.

On an initial listen, all three singles from Lenderman’s upcoming fourth album Manning Fireworks prove his well-documented affinity for these kinds of fellas with mathematical precision, none more so than the latest, ‘Joker Lips’.

The track, however, is a wolf in sheep’s beer-stained white singlet. It calls its title character a coward and, like ‘Rudolph’ before it, trades the ‘dudes rock’ formula perfected on 2022’s Boat Songs for Catholic guilt and the universality of wanting to be needed.

Before the opening image of a joker-pilled goober giving a rubber mask its scars rips through your imagination, pedal steel – noticeably missing on rocking second single ‘She’s Leaving You’ – lilts into frame.

‘Joker Lips’ has some all-time one liners peppered throughout, best-on-ground being tied by a lament on getting a DUI on a scooter, and the all-too relatable feeling that the morning after a big one really wants and is trying to kill you. 

We’ve now heard a third of the tracks on Manning Fireworks, all three of them 95 mph fastballs straight down the guts, this record is shaping up to be an absolute heater.

Ollie O’Brien

1 August 2024