CLIFFDIVER – birdwatching | Album Review

SideOneDummy Records

I’m tired. Not just in a “Oh, I didn’t get enough sleep last night” kind of way or even a “This has just been a rough week for me” kind of way. It’s been a rough 29 years, and I feel like the past few have taken more than their share off my grand total. As the years speed along, I find new and creative ways to cope with the trauma of the pandemic, the stresses of growing older, and the horrors I witness on a daily basis through the rectangle in my pocket. Daily tasks feel like a struggle, and despite being a social person, spending time with others doesn’t recharge me in the ways that it used to. This feeling of exhaustion and my inability to deal with it is compounded by the sense that I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. I’m almost 30 years old, and I can’t get through a day or two without feeling like I missed something crucial in my upbringing that makes me “less than” my peers. 

However, something I often find myself thinking about is how I’m not alone in feeling this way. Whether it's regarding my employment status, my consistently depleted bank account, general exhaustion and dissatisfaction with my life, or feeling ill-equipped for the world around me, it seems to be a shared trend amongst my generation – and bleeding into the next. There’s a strange, oddly comforting sense of solidarity in that fact, but along with it is an even greater sense of how fucked it is that we all feel this way. Some do a convincing job of pretending these struggles don't affect them in an attempt to push “normalcy,” but it is heartening to see the overwhelming number of people I know uplifting each other and tackling the minutiae of daily life together in the hopes that maybe one day things will improve.

While listening to their latest LP, birdwatching, it’s apparent that eerily similar thoughts are heavy on the minds of Oklahoma-based punk rock band CLIFFDIVER. As a fan of the septet since the release of their last album, Exercise Your Demons, that refreshingly real and uncompromising outlook on life is nothing new to them, especially given what the band has been through in recent years, and I was pleased to discover that this new collection of songs further commits to exploring difficult concepts. 

Opening track “thirty, flirty, and thriving!!!” highlights this struggle of being alive for three whole decades and still having absolutely no grasp of what is going on around you. Desperate, honest lyrics “thirty years and I still don’t know shit” repeatedly hit me over the head, echoing the little voices rattling around in my brain and making me feel like I’m the only person in the world who doesn't have their shit together. The single “dayz gone” further piles on these exhausted emotions, daily defeats, and mistrust in those around us and the systems we live in.

CLIFFDIVER have never been strangers to versatility in their albums, and birdwatching is no exception. Upbeat tracks like “team fight tactics” saunter through with bubbly drum beats, charming back-and-forths between vocalists Joey Duffy and Brianna Wright, and sultry horn tones satisfy the desire for some easy listening. A couple tracks later, “midnight mass” explores themes of devastating losses and dissipated relationships – as gutting to listen to as I’m sure it was to write. The unique beauty of CLIFFDIVER is how both of these tracks are about daily life and human relationships –  the former highlighting squabbles between sports teams and the ever-elusive decision of what’s for dinner, while the latter bemoans the pitfalls of nostalgia and missing friends whom we’re admittedly better off without. Each of the 12 tracks on this album is its own world, its own private story to tell, and we’re given the privilege of being let in, if only for a few minutes apiece. This particular kind of sequencing and formulation on display makes me crave far more than 35 minutes in these worlds. 

It’s not lightly or hyperbolically when I state that there are no bands doing it right now like CLIFFDIVER. The ninth track on the album, “would tho,” stands not only as my favorite track on an already spectacular collection of instant classics but as a testament to everything I love about this band. Seemingly possessed by a hardcore counterpart just one track earlier, "CLIFFDRIVER," sees the group take a page out of Pool Kids's book (or should I say POOL) by throwing down a one-minute hardcore track that acts as an exhilarating mid-album burst of energy. “would tho” continues this catharsis with a danceable rhythm and spacy synth notes ornamenting this infectious hardcore punk jaunt, delivering one of my favorite songs of the year. The feature by Stoph Colasanto of Carpool in the track “goin for the garbage plate” only serves to elevate this album into the greats of 2024 and flaunts how impressive this year has been for the punk scene. Carpool delivered their own essential punk offering, My Life In Subtitles, just a few months earlier, and their inclusion here only proves that birds of a feather do indeed flock together.

I think the knee-jerk reaction when you’re dissatisfied with your life is to torture yourself with what you could have done differently. Instead of dealing with the problem at hand, it’s easier to beat yourself up and pinpoint the exact moment where you fucked everything up. And when the sulking and self-pitying recedes, there’s the allure of nostalgia and uncomplicated escapism to satiate you for a while. The final track on birdwatching, “i reckon you might could i s’pose,” acts not only as a closing thesis statement for the record but a snapshot of these difficult cycles of failure and self-soothing. As a generation trapped by overwhelming nostalgia in the face of unparalleled grief and disappointment, we’re mesmerized by the idea of an alternate universe where these tragedies never happened. The melancholic guitar trills into triumphant brass and chanting gang vocals evoke mixed emotions and open the finale up to interpretation – is this the acceptance of defeat, or is it a rallying cry? 

This latest album by CLIFFDIVER provides something the scene desperately needs now more than ever – brutal honesty. Crisp production, signature vocals, and uncompromising instrumental performances engross from track to track. Joey and Bri continue to complement each other with their unique and unmistakable styles, which are as arresting as their lyrics. Musical prowess and impressive instrumentation are definitely enough to carry a solid record, but the feelings – the raw, unfiltered admissions behind birdwatching – are what make it a truly special experience. Flawless sequencing, just the right balance of songs to mourn to and songs to get into fist-fights to, CLIFFDIVER continues to elevate my hopes for the future of diverse, complex music that always has something important to say.

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Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.

worlds greatest dad – Better Luck Next Time | Album Review

SideOneDummy Records

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what we mean when we talk about a band maturing. With artists from the past, the subject is often clear cut; if you listen to Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash followed by Don’t Tell a Soul, it’s not difficult to pick out which of the two was made by kids, and when you listen to the records that came in between the two, it’s easy to see the progression that took us from one to the next. With newer bands, especially those that are still active, the conversation becomes a little more gray. In the realm of emo-adjacent music, I often see maturation used to describe a band whose newest release features fewer of the genre’s stylistic hallmarks than the one that came before it. It seems if you turn down the knob that says “emo” and turn up the knob that says “indie,” you're bound to have your record described as your most mature yet.

I don’t necessarily disagree with this assessment when I see it, but I do wish that the way bands progress was talked about more from other angles. Maturation doesn’t always present as a band becoming more stripped down or reserved. Sometimes, it can look like further commitment to a style or adding new elements without subtracting others. It can be a band growing into their identity rather than moving towards what others might think “mature” sounds like. This is the kind of maturation I thought about when listening to worlds greatest dad’s new album, Better Luck Next Time. 

Better Luck Next Time is the group’s second full-length and their first since 2018’s get well soon. A lot happened in the six years between the releases, including a lineup of Kegan Krogh, Ben Etter, and Matt Hendler coalescing around bandleader Maddie Duncan, as well as the four signing with SideOneDummy earlier this year. Despite how much time has passed, Better Luck Next Time feels like a natural sequel to get well soon, improving on what came before without moving too far away from the band’s sound. 

Where moments on get well soon caught my attention, moments on Better Luck Next Time go a step further and knock me over. Album opener “Twenty Deer” starts with a minute of wistful vocals over acoustic and slide guitar, then, suddenly, the full band enters, and you’re hit with crashing drums and a strong, luminous guitar lead. Beyond sounding huge, when the instruments come together here, they sound clear; you can hear every part and how it compliments the whole with washes of reverb and subtle synths acting as a bed for everything else to lay in. 

This balance can be found throughout the whole album and allows the guitar leads, in particular, to shine. On the intro of “Bike Song” and chorus of “Concrete (A Love Song),” the guitar is the locomotive that pulls everything along, and its placement in the mix allows for a tone that’s strong and ear-catching without being abrasive. On “Taking One for the Team,” the lead takes prominence during the first hook in a more complimentary role, still strong but deployed to dance around the main vocal line before joining up with strings and the more prominent bass of the verses. Most of these elements have been there in past worlds greatest dad releases but generally with fewer, more compressed layers. Here, we see the songwriting and arrangements bloom fully, a more substantial structure built on similar bones. 

The scale of the songs here sometimes gives Better Luck Next Time an almost stadium rock quality. “Two Birds,” in particular, is a song that feels grandiose, pairing its massive sound with one of the record’s best hooks; Duncan singing, “Cause I was watchin’ when your head fell from the clouds / And you could correct me now if I was what knocked your feet off of the ground” is something I haven’t been able to get out of my head since my first listen. Fourth single, “The Ocean,” is another song with a huge earworm chorus that feels made for radio, with the instrumentation around the hook made extra lush thanks to the more staccato sections that precede it. Sometimes, with bands in this lane, you wonder how the sound will translate to larger stages when the time comes, but that’s not a worry when listening to Better Luck Next Time. These are big songs that feel like they’re meant to be performed in front of big crowds.

One of the more reserved tracks on the album that really stuck with me was “Fakin’ a Smile.” Part of why many of the tracks on Better Luck Next Time sound so big is the masterful use of vocal doubles, reverb, and harmonies, allowing Duncan’s voice to contend with the big instrumentation surrounding it. This always sounds cool, but it’s nice on tracks like “Fakin’ A Smile,” where we hear a bit more raw vocal that highlights the pure quality of their voice. The little vocal quiver we hear as Duncan sings, “I don’t think I can get out of bed” right before the chorus is just so good; it’s the kind of vocal affect that can sound trite if overdone, but here it’s executed so perfectly that you feel it in your gut.

Continuing into that song’s chorus, we’re hit with some of my favorite lines on the album, as Duncan sings, “And I got so drunk that I turned sober / And my stomach soured over / And I felt the floor fall with me.” I don’t know that I’ve heard a more succinct distillation of the moment that you realize that you’re too drunk and the consequences that come with it, particularly when your intention for drinking was to escape or find comfort. When the realization hits that the comfort’s not coming, but you’re already deep into a bottle, it really can send you into freefall, which is described perfectly here. 

One thing that’s tough about being in your late teens and early twenties is that you often engage in these cycles of behavior but aren’t equipped to fully identify them. I don’t think lyrics or realizations like those on “Fakin’ a Smile” generally can come from someone in the early throes of young adulthood, even though they’re related to behaviors and experiences that come in that part of your life. 

I feel similarly about the lines “It wasn’t that you gave up on your dreams / But at the same time you stopped believing in me” from “Bad Neighborhood” and plenty of other sections throughout the record. So much of the lyrical content feels like it can be summed up as reckoning with the inevitable mistakes one made when they were younger, specifically the type of reckoning that can only come with some time and distance. This ultimately is one of the things that really got me thinking about maturity when I was listening through. Better Luck Next Time is an album of progression for worlds greatest dad both sonically and emotionally. It’s their most mature record yet, and also their best. 

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. You can keep up with his writing on music and sports on Twitter and listen to his band Cutaway Car here.

The Name of the Band Is Pop Music Fever Dream

Photo by Sydney Tate

I don’t know how to be alone with my thoughts. Even when I’m playing a video game or reading a book, things I love doing to relax, I need an endless queue of YouTube videos or music to keep my brain preoccupied. I used to think it was because my ADHD has been left untreated since I was diagnosed in the second grade, but now I think I just hate myself. 

I talk a big game about loving art that makes you feel bad. I call movies like Blue Velvet my favorites, saying I love films that make you confront the darkest parts of your psyche, but when the credits roll, I’m looking for something else to fill the air. I am afraid that if I’m left alone with my thoughts, I won’t like what I see. I’ve let my brain get hijacked by the algorithms that get off on serving content that makes me want to fight; I’ve become just “an extension of that glass and metal,” as Tim Seeberger sing-talks on “Another Screen,” the lead single for Pop Music Fever Dream's new EP, Songs for Emotion.

I have a setlist from Pop Music Fever Dream’s show on December 30th at Our Wicked Lady that says at the bottom, “ALL NOISE ALL THE TIME!” an apt description of the band's sound, but also how it feels to be alive. As Seeberger puts it, the “tailored presence of bad emotions / blue light cuts through my brain” helps drown out any negative thought I could have, leaving me with good feelings forever. 

I first saw PMFD (what the real heads call ‘em) at Bushwick’s premier cemetery-adjacent venue, Purgatory, in March 2023. That night was the release show of Frog Era by ok, cuddle, the brilliant fifth-wave emo project helmed by PMFD guitarist Nicole Harwayne. I hadn’t heard any of the bands on the bill at that point, except for my beloved Crush Fund, so I didn’t anticipate leaving with two new favorite bands. 

Watching PMFD that night was like falling in love. The band has the chaotic energy you read about the first wave of punk stars possessing. Their songs tap into the no-wave era Parquet Courts had on Content Nausea and have the confidence to drop in snippets of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ classic “Maps.” On any given night, you can find Seeberger climbing precariously placed speaker stacks, shimmying their way up a pole, or crawling under the stage. These aren’t just the antics of a band desperate to hold your attention; the shambolic mess of a PMFD set is required by the music. When Seeberger drops the mic and leaves the room at the bridge of “The Internet (And Other Modern Observations), Vol. 1,” it’s not just a consistent gimmick; I imagine they need the time away from the stage to regroup. 

PMFD are pure, perpetual motion machines; they have to keep going, pushing, grinding, hitting harder, faster. If they stop for even a second, the thoughts will come flooding back in. That energy extends into the audience. I once told Seeberger that PMFD pits are the only ones I’ve ever actually been afraid to be in, and not just because I’ve taken guitar headstocks to the skull but because the crowd is as reckless with their bodies as Seeberger and the band are with their music. 

The shows offer ecstatic release, but this is not fun music. Like how listening to Gilla Band brings you into Dara Kiely’s panic attacks, Songs for Emotion is like getting trapped in Seeberger’s head as they have a mental breakdown trying to break free from the Matrix. From the liminal music video for “Another Screen,” to the torn personality manifesto of “Split,” to the drowning sound of “Elegy for Memory,” to the pipe bomb in the mailbox of transphobic legislatures of “18 States,” Songs for Emotion is music to rip your head from the screen. 

Over three Zoom calls interrupted by spotty internet and free plan time limits, as well as a couple of text messages, Seeberger and I talked about the role the internet plays in our lives, the recording of Songs for Emotion, self-hatred, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

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Swim Into The Sound: I wanted to start by talking with you about your relationship with the internet because I think it’s pretty obvious you have a fraught one. Something you do a good job of on “Another Screen” is talking about seeking the internet for comfort, which often spirals into doomscrolling and other forms of despair. When I was young, what got me into the internet was Cartoon Network games, which has since spiraled into having YouTube on in the background all the time or scrolling on my phone to constantly stimulate my brain. So I was wondering what was the thing that brought you to the internet?

Tim Seeberger: Like, what made me say the internet is for me? I think around the same vibe. I was into Nick dot com, playing all the games up there, Disney channel dot com, and I still think of the Ed, Edd, and Eddy game. There was Postopia, which was all about Cereals. I remember getting shown YouTube pretty early on. My uncle and aunt showed me the numa numa video, and I said, “This is the best thing ever.” Or, like “muffins,” which I loved but was creeped out by. And then I got really into RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, and there were all these videos of people doing mods that I would watch. I had my own little YouTube channel, and I would post my Roller Coaster POV’s. I think the channel is long gone. 

I would say that put me on the internet. I had AIM as well and would talk to the same three people in my middle school class. Then I got Facebook in the sixth or seventh grade and was like, “This is pretty sick.” I lied to get on there, I think I was 11 and said I was 13. I was an early adopter of everything. I saw the dawn of a lot of things that are now ruining my life. Instagram, I was on there early. I got on Twitter when you had to type “RT” to quote tweet. I was early on Snapchat. I had an iPhone that didn’t have a front-facing camera, but I remember when Facetime came around. All that to say, I’ve seen it all. Being 27, I’m kinda some of the last people to live a pre-internet life. Like, I started out with a dumb phone, but now I work a remote job on my laptop all day writing emails.

SWIM: Do you know when the relationship switched when it became an “issue” in your life? 

TIM: I would say around the time that it became an issue for everybody. I was a senior in high school and a freshman in college around 2015/2016. I feel like that’s when the internet started taking a dark turn. It was always on a dark turn, but it seemed less creative and more mind-numbing as the first election cycle of Trump came around. I started getting into deep-fried memes and becoming friends with people who were, as we know now, internet-pilled. 

I was on Vine too, and that probably shortened my attention span a little bit. But I would say that it was a noticeable issue around the pandemic. We had so much time to be on our phones, so I downloaded TikTok, and the rest is history. There’s one thing to be involved in memes and be brain rotted that way, but when you get into niche political content online, that’s when I was fucked. With everything that’s happening in the world, there is a whole new level of doomerism on the internet because you have niche political content that makes you wanna die, and then you jump to memes that make you wanna die, then you jump to memes that are brain rotted, then you somehow sink down into what the kids are looking at these days, and it’s like that’s a whole other level of dark. 

Photo by Sydney Tate

SWIM: That issue with switching tones feels like whiplash is constantly happening in your brain. Do you think it’s possible to manage having a brain that can take in this much information?

TIM: There’s way too much information available to us at this moment in time and in the wrong way. With the internet, all of this information was technically available to us, but it was less accessible. 

It’s been tough watching what is happening in Palestine because it is just an onslaught of terrors every day. As it should be to get the word out of how terrible this is, and there’s no internet access, and we’re purposely cut off from this. But it can get tough. I come from a journalism background, so it’s always just an onslaught of news and online stuff. But way back when you had to go searching for stuff, it wasn’t always this way. 

On the whole, without getting into nuances that obviously change this answer, there is just too much information all at once coming at you. And it’s done on purpose to keep you on there, to numb your head. I wanted to capture that feeling a little bit in “Another Screen.” That’s why there is that dissonance between the verses and the sound of the chorus and the end of the song. I felt like it had movements to it, like I wanted to write a very normal post-punk song, and then I wanted to really fuck it up. And I guess in some way, it kinda is an allegory for how the internet feels sometimes, like very normal and then at its core very intense and all-consuming. 

SWIM: That bit where you scream at the very end is the last vocal we hear, and it gets drowned out in the mix by the rest of the band. It feels like screaming into the void. Because that’s all you do when you tweet or post anything.

TIM: There is definitely intention to having it be just all of the same lyrics in that section. “At some point, it’s all too much / it never ends / it never ends.” That’s what I wanted to nail into people’s heads. It never ends, that’s it. 

That is what it feels, like you’re screaming into this void, but in my head, the void isn’t this dark and black; it’s like TV static and scrolling on your phone super fast until your eyes bleed.

SWIM: It’s like shoving your head into the TV in I Saw the TV Glow. 

TIM: Yeah, 1000%. With “I stick my head into the phone, to not explain the unexplainable,” I had this idea of my head falling back into my phone. My phone was like water, and I was drowning in it. 

SWIM: “Split” has been stuck with me for weeks.

TIM: That’s a hard one.

SWIM: Every time I listen to it, I am forced to reflect on being in the closet. Obviously, there’s the line, “and just shove myself back into the closet.” That was how I felt when I realized I was trans. Every time I listen to it, I think about how terrible of a partner or friend I was because I was just shoving myself into a corner. It’s a terrifying song. 

TIM: It was a very difficult song to write. That instrumental had kicked around in my head for close to two years, and I knew it had to be something intense. It was coming down to the wire; I was writing the lyrics on the way to record the vocals simply because I didn’t know what I wanted it to be about. 

The only lines I had that stuck from day one were “the rites of spring aren’t right anymore” and “the lights are off and no one's home,” which really summarized my existence for a while, whether when I was coming out, or be it just figuring myself out these days: “The lights are off and no one’s home.”

I was having a conversation with Nicole and Carmen in the car on the way to practice and asked, “Hey, should I put this in the song? Is this too heavy? Is this too much?” Nicole said, “You should write about whatever you’re feeling. I think the best stuff is about what you’re feeling.” In ok, cuddle, Nicole is certainly someone who puts her heart on her sleeve in her lyrics, and I admire that. I think I was very scared because it was me being open and painfully brutal about many things in my life that were going on at the time, and it applies to things that are still happening. Now that I’m in a better place, it is a little sad to look back on the line “In the name of all that is good in thee, get the fuck away from me” because it is like “I am a terrible person, do not love me. I’m gonna fuck you over.” Not the case, not true; that’s just my mental health talking. But it was basically like, ‘I don’t deserve love, run.’ 

The thing I’m most proud of is “You don’t know what you’re running from / but it scares you anyway / and you don’t know what scares you / but you run anyway.” That was something I wrote, and I was like, “I need to figure out what this means,” and I still am. It just came to me. Sometimes things sound good, and I put them in a song and I have to figure out later on what it is. I think I’m in the process of figuring that out. 

SWIM: That whole bridge where layers of your voice are echoing on top of each other is so painful because what you’re saying is so true about reckoning with yourself. You mentioned that it’s hard to look back on those lyrics of “get the fuck away from me,” but it’s so refreshing to hear someone admit that they aren’t always a good person or reckon with how they see themselves.

TIM: I’m not a person who is going to push anyone away; I’m not gonna be shitty on purpose.

SWIM: No, you’re one of the most lovely people I know.

TIM: Thanks, that was me fishing for compliments. I’m kidding.

SWIM: That’s staying in the article. 

TIM: Of course it is.

That [lyric] spoke to my perception of myself and the love that I thought I deserved for a long, long time, and honestly, it’s not even because I knew… That line came from me doing that to myself so many times. In the end, I realized that it was just not true. It was an intense and painful song. 

Sonically, this is one of the best songs I’ve ever written because it’s so weird. It was such a big, overwhelming idea in my head because I had a grandiose vision of what I wanted it to be, and I could make it happen now. 

SWIM: It’s interesting to me that the instrumental came so early and the lyrics came so late because it does feel of a piece. There are moments in the song where I’m like, this is a Black Flag song with how the guitars are like scrambling. Listening, I feel like I’m having a panic attack and literally punching a mirror. It captures what the lyrics are saying, so it’s incredible that it wasn’t a cohesive piece from the start.

TIM: We had to record it in four parts because we were still learning the song. We were very down to the wire on that one.

Thankfully, I wrote the song with four distinct movements with a stop and a start to everything. But it was an undertaking for sure. I remember Dominico sitting there for 30 minutes getting that drum fill in at the end. To his credit, he got it. There’s this video Violette (Grim, production/engineer) got of me orchestrating in the recording room, and when he did it, I remember making this fun face. 

SWIM: Because you said you had a vision for this song, and now you could execute it, I was curious how bringing in Carmen, Nicole, and Dominico changed your approach to crafting these songs.

TIM: It’s an ever-evolving process. Whereas “Another Screen” came as a fully formed idea, what you hear, save for Nicole because she writes all her own parts, is essentially the same thing. “Elegy for Memory,” Carmen wrote the bassline for that. I wrote it, and then she pushed it over the edge. That’s the dynamic of the band. I’ll come to them with these songs, and then immediately they’ll take it and be like, “What about this?” 

One of my favorite bass parts on “Spilt,” or dare I say the entire EP, is that part where Carmen goes Don Bum Bom Bum Bon Um at the end of that freakout section. That is all her. She was saving that for something, and when she did it, I was like, “You get the vision!” 

It’s a push-and-pull that feels really good. I still have creative control in some aspects, but the ideas flow very freely between us.

SWIM: I know you’re a big film buff because you and I have talked a lot about movies. Is there a film you would emotionally compare to Songs for Emotion?

TIM: Although I connect emotionally way more to the aesthetics of a film, I have to say that Neon Genesis Evangelion deeply moved me on an emotional level. First, it’s 14-year-olds in robot suits battling aliens, and then next thing you know, it’s about God and the existence of suffering. It’s incredible. I watched it at a really dark time in my life years ago, and both the last two episodes of the series, End of Evangelion, and the last Rebuild movie wrecked me and put me back together. It changed my viewpoint on life. At my lowest, I think about the scenes of Shinji crying at the thought of causing others pain when he doesn’t even realize getting hung up on that in the first place is causing the suffering. It comforts me to know you can still cry about your life and then eventually do something about it, knowing that the journey was necessary. Wrestling with suffering and trying to get out of my own way to be a better person is something I connected with in the series, which I hope is evident in the EP. 

SWIM: What’s next for PMFD? You’re going on tour with A Place to Bury Strangers later in the year, but what else?

TIM: We’re opening for Sunflower Bean. I’m super excited; they were a major inspiration for me to start PMFD in the first place. Then, take some downtime to write and record and see what happens. The beauty of naming my band Pop Music Fever Dream is that I describe it as listening to pop music in a fever dream. Who knows what is going to come out the other side? 

Stream “Another Screen” today. Songs for Emotion is out September 18th,
you can pre-save it here.

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on Twitter @Lilymweber.

The Enduring Life of the Burnout 3 Soundtrack

Twenty years ago, on September 8th, 2004, Burnout 3: Takedown was released on the sixth generation of consoles. Burnout 3 is an arcadey racing game designed around boosting, driving as fast as possible, and knocking opponents off the road as you race towards the finish line. In its purest moments, you’d find yourself flying down busy streets at triple-digit speeds, trading paint with other racers, sparks flying as you attempt to smash them into walls, pillars, and oncoming cars. Not only is Burnout 3 one of my favorite games of all time, but it also has one of the most formative soundtracks of my entire life, filled with infectious pop-punk and early-aughts shredding. 

Depending on what kind of household you grew up in, a new video game was a big deal. In my family, a new video game was a special occasion typically reserved for birthdays, holidays, or months of scraping together hard-earned allowance money. Maybe that’s why, when my mom purchased Burnout 3 for me on a whim in 2005, it has stuck with me to this day.

When you’re in middle school (as I was in 2005), a new game is worth its weight in gold, and a good new game is worth the world. In the summer of 2005, I was only 12 years old with two younger brothers who were still in elementary school, so I wasn’t allowed to own Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or any other “Mature” games. Luckily, Burnout 3 was only rated “Teen” due to “mild violence and mild language,” two asterisks my mom could apparently get behind. The game was also a year old at that point, so it was also probably discounted to hell, which didn’t hurt. 

I still remember this purchase because it was so unexpected. I asked my mom if I could buy a used copy of the game, fully expecting a ‘no’ as the answer, but even then I knew shooters had to shoot their shot. Much to my surprise, she responded with, “Sure, why not?” and bought the game on the spot while we were out running errands. I carried the case home, placed the disc gently in my Xbox, and my life was never the same. 

Not only is Burnout 3 a great game, but it’s a great game with a great soundtrack. My music taste at that time centered almost exclusively around my dad’s music or stuff I had picked up from friends. That meant lots of AC/DC, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, and Foo Fighters. That was all well and good, but on the cusp of my rebellious teenage years, I was looking for something to make my taste my own, and I found that in Burnout 3.

When you boot up Burnout 3, you’re greeted by a series of logos followed by a montage of car-smashing gameplay set to The F-Ups’ snotty pop-punk anthem “Lazy Generation.” As my pre-teen brain absorbed the flashy visuals of speeding cars and the immensely catchy chorus, something inside me clicked. This shit ruled.

After the intro, I proceeded to the main menu and finally took control of a car as I played through the game’s tutorial. Soon, the sounds of No Motiv’s “Independence Day” blared from the speakers of my TV as I sped down the streets of some wooded Californian town. My blood pumped, my pupils dilated, and my brain was on fire with dopamine, all while high-energy pop-punk scored the scene. 

Years later, I look back on Burnout 3 as an oddly formative discovery in my musical history. That soundtrack – while very frosted-tips, chain wallet, mid-aughts – led me to a genre of music that I didn’t even know the name of at the time. By the time I was in high school, I’d come to consciously conceive of what “pop-punk” was, but by that point, the genre had all but fallen out of favor in popular culture. Before I knew about subgenres, my pre-teen brain could barely grasp the connection between these songs, other than the fact that they were fast-paced and made me want to drive a digital supercar like an absolute hellion. 

Even now, two decades later, I still revere many of these bands on a very genuine level. I mean, who can say no to Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory? I still go absolutely bonkers for “C’mon C’mon,” “Hot Night Crash,” and “Saccharine Smile,” all songs I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for this game. This soundtrack also gave me my first brush with scene-shaping bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Yellow Card, and From First To Last. 

Listing these groups out in 2024, it’s almost impossible to conceive of any piece of media where they’d all fit together. You’ve got Franz Ferdinand, Motion City Soundtrack, and Rise Against, all of which are spun by Stryker, the game’s in-universe DJ who comments on races from the comfort of his studio at Crash FM. While this feature of “in-universe DJ” would be adopted in countless future games (usually to more annoying degrees), it gave the world of Burnout some sense of believability and treated these songs with more reverence than just another thing that would play during a race. Framing the songs through this omnipresent disc jockey made it feel like they were being played intentionally by a real person, or at least that’s how it felt to my dumb little 12-year-old brain.

It's worth noting that Burnout 3 wasn’t just pop-punk; you had some harder metalcore stuff like Atreyu, straight-up punk like The Bouncing Souls, legacy bands like the Ramones, and at least a few bands from the UK scene like The Futureheads. There is also a surprising amount of Vagrant Records representation from groups like No Motiv and Reggie And The Full Effect, but my adoration for those bands and that label is another post entirely. 

Two decades down the line, I’ll still boot up Burnout 3 once in a while whenever I have access to the old Xbox 360 at my parent's house back in Portland. Ironically, because of music licensing, the game isn’t backward compatible with current consoles, meaning the only way to play it is on the original hardware or (at best) a decade-old Xbox 360. As a result, Burnout 3 is left to be eclipsed by its more accessible sequels, Burnout Revenge and Burnout Paradise. While those games probably served a similar purpose to people a few years younger than me, Burnout 3 will always be “my” Burnout of choice, and even though it’s a bit harder to play, luckily, I can always throw the soundtrack on and relive the glory days of Takedowns and spectacular crashes.

MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks | Album Review

On Monday, June 24, 2024, I woke up to great news. For one, it was my birthday, and I was thrilled to be turning a supple 31 years old… but that wasn’t the news. After making sure I was sufficiently awake, my girlfriend alerted me, “MJ Lenderman dropped a new song and has an album coming out in September.” Perfect. It felt like a little gift delivered right to me. 

Together, we watched the video for “She’s Leaving You” and basked in the bummer lyrics, soaring chorus, and charismatic talent show visuals. As MJ shredded a guitar solo while his band moved around him at half-speed, the song immediately felt like yet another masterstroke in Lenderman’s already full canvas of fruitful fuck-ups and off-putting weirdos. The melody is immaculate; the instrumental is covered in a layer of grit, while the lyrics embody a type of dejected divorcee energy that you’d usually find in a Drive-By Truckers song or, at the very least, penned by someone about twice Lenderman’s age. It's not like this is MJ’s first brush with these types of broken-down boomerisms (“TV Dinners” would like a word), but even still, it’s shocking to hear sentiments like these from the mouth of someone only midway through their twenties. Above all else, “She’s Leaving You” is catchy as hell and has remained on repeat all summer long, soundtracking sunny trips to the beach, lackadaisical days in the park, and sweltering excursions into the city. It was an excellent way to start my 31st year.

Between the record’s first three singles and MJ’s contributions to the incredible new Waxahatchee record, I was fully having an MJ Lenderman Summer. Blessed with an early advance of Manning Fireworks, I waited until just the right moment to crack this LP open and enjoy it to its fullest capacity. Turns out what that looked like for me was a sweaty day in Brooklyn on the Fourth of July. After spending the morning scraping and cleaning my girlfriend's family’s grill, I escaped to Prospect Park with a beach blanket, a half-smoked joint, and my AirPods. I spent a little while walking around the busy park, taking in the swirl of conversations, volleyball games, and family get-togethers. I absorbed all the smiles of passersby and inhaled deeply, feeling the sun on my skin and relishing the smell of hot dog smoke in my lungs. I found a nice little secluded spot under a tree, laid out my blanket, and hit play to enjoy all 38 minutes and 54 seconds of Manning Fireworks uninterrupted and unimpeded. It was one of my favorite music-listening experiences I’ve ever had in my life. 

If you’ve followed this blog for long enough, you probably know I’m a bit of an MJ Freak. While I’d been following his work for a minute, it wasn’t until a fateful Fourth of July a few years ago that I found myself kicking back to Boat Songs over the course of a relaxing four-day weekend on the Oregon Coast and felt everything click. From there, I became infatuated with his country-flavored guitar fuzz, one-of-a-kind observations, and funny-ass lyrics. If he wasn’t so thoroughly North Carolinian, he felt exactly like the types of dudes I grew up with, obsessed with wrestling, Jackass, and rock music. Over time, I tended to drift more towards the dirty lo-fi stylings found on his early work, like Knockin’ and Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, but Boat Songs grew on me more and more with each listen until I considered myself a pretty hardcore MJ fan. A couple of years later, a knockout live album helped his entire body of work coalesce into one hour of personable alt-country indie rock. A patio album through and through, And The Wind (Live and Loose!) offers a quick way to get up to speed with MJ’s body of work, acting as a career-spanning already-greatest-hits that feels like both an introduction to prospective new listeners and a celebration of everything Lenderman had released up to that point.

If you’re familiar with any of the three albums or four EPs that came before this, one of the first things you might notice about Manning Fireworks is how cleanly produced these songs sound. Gone is the garage rock haze of “Tastes Just Like It Costs” and sub-fi strums of “Dan Marino,” which were oftentimes more artistic affectation than technical limitation. Also gone are the winding runtimes found on MJ’s self-titled first album, where most of the tracks clocked in around 7 minutes. On his fourth LP, virtually every song hovers around the three-minute mark, save for the ten-minute closing track, “Bark At The Moon,” and even that’s kind of cheating since it ends with a long stretch of wordless drone. To that end, I’ve found Manning Fireworks feels much more spiritually parallel to Ghost of Your Guitar Solo than Boat Songs, but maybe that’s just because both lean into Lenderman’s impulse to throw a scratchy instrumental track into the mix. 

I think it’s easy to see Manning Fireworks as less raucous and “fun” than Boat Songs, but this really is an album of halves. There’s no song as upright and victorious as “Hangover Game” or as bright-eyed and loving as “You Are Every Girl To Me,” but this record still has plenty of energy, ideas, and riffs to dole out. I also think it’s easy to lose sight of how incredibly fun each of these singles have been since they’ve been strategically doled out over the course of 14 months. 

The origins of Manning Fireworks technically started back in 2023 with the release of “Rudolph” smackdab in the middle of July. Originally positioned as a standalone single meant to accompany his signing to ANTI-, the song signaled a level-up in more ways than one. Boasting an infectious four-beat countdown and whining pedal steel, the track recounts an ill-fated meeting between the famously outcast reindeer and Lightning McQueen of Pixar’s Cars franchise. Like all great MJ songs, these pop culture references mainly serve as goofy totems the listener can grasp onto as Lenderman uses them to ladder up to a more profound point. In the case of “Rudolph,” the song mounts up to a pathetically lovestruck confession as he sings, “I wouldn't be in the seminary if I could be with you.” 

A month later, “Rudolph” was revealed to be a 7” single that gave Lenderman an excuse to revisit “Knockin,” the original version of which is, on a good day, my personal favorite MJ song. While it’s obviously different than the scrappy rendition from a couple of years prior, MJ has a history of re-recording his own material: he’s got alternate versions of “TLC Cagematch,” “SUV,” and “Tastes Like It Costs,” just to name a few. This is an artistic quirk that I like a lot; it rewards longtime fans and offers the artist a new way to interface and interpret his own work. [Fun Fact: he does just this on Manning Fireworks, turning “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In” from a crunchy homespun groove off a Bandcamp comp into a Beat The Champ-esque waltz adorned with clarinets, upright bass, and something called a “slide bebo”]. While I initially thought this “Rudolph b/w Knockin” package was just another in a long line of these re-recordings, I actually think it was MJ tipping his hand a bit in terms of shifting away from that lo-fi sound. It’s not exactly a rejection of the original “Knockin,” but it’s a revisitation that almost implies this is how the song was always meant to be heard. Maybe it was a primer for this record; maybe it was just a send-off to that era. 

This upgraded fidelity is noticeable throughout Manning Fireworks, but not a knock against it (see what I did there?). On the contrary, this record sounds impeccable. It was recorded by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, NC, which currently feels like an absolute hotbed of scene-shaping indie rock. Not only have the last few MJ releases gone through Drop of Sun, but Fararr has also touched records from Wednesday, Squirrel Flower, Indigo De Souza, Hotline TNT, and Horse Jumper of Love. Drop of Sun’s output ranges in scale from local North Carolina talent like emo punks Kerosene Heights and Durham folksters Fust all the way up to indie rock household names like Angel Olsen, Snail Mail, and Plains. The place also looks incredible; I’ll drop a gallery of photos here just in case you’re as struck by the vibes as I am. 

When all’s said and done, you have a very pretty album that feels like a clearly realized version of what MJ Lenderman’s music can be when he lets his singer-songwriter tendrils unfurl. Manning Fireworks is a fairly traditional-length album that posits a familiar structure. You’ve got a slow-starting opening, a Side A that’s slammed wall-to-wall with singles and heaters, then a more introspective (but still rockin’) back half, all capped off with a meditative six minutes of feedback. I’m here for it. 

Throughout the album, Lenderman phrases his words in endlessly mystifying and charming ways. Sometimes, the thing he’s Actually Talking About feels like it’s veiled in fifteen layers of mystery; other times, it’s only ten. Pretty consistently, Lenderman is obtuse to the point where it almost feels like its own language. You can parse his phrasing in a few different ways and get vastly different interpretations. Even when he’s just singing something as commonplace as Guitar Hero, there’s a specificity to it that suggests there could be a deeper layer. Other times, it’s just meant to be funny. No matter which way you interpret it, there’s an undeniably benign beauty to a lyric like “We sat under a half-mast McDonald’s flag.” 

This is not just esotericness for esotericness’ sake. In fact, it’s all so earnest that the listener is encouraged to take it all at face value, which becomes just one possible way to read the album. Lyrics on Manning Fireworks often feel like brief little barbs or self-dispensed idioms, leaving the listener to either laugh or fill in the gaps. As soon as one line lands, the next one is already there to sweep you off into a separate thought or tasty riff. Whenever Lenderman happens to settle in and tell a story, things are gripping and compelling. They usually depict down-on-their-luck people who are pathetic to various points of return. Are they losers for life or just in that moment? Did we happen to catch them on a bad day, or is this their irredeemable day-to-day existence? On the opening title track, Lenderman depicts a guy who’s ultimately surmised to be a “jerk.” 

Some have passion
Some have purpose
You have sneakin' backstage to hound the girls in the circus

Interestingly enough, he also chooses to address this all directly to the audience, sketching this caricature while attributing every quality to you. He continues on in a biblical batch of lyrics that hit me as Father John Misty-esque on first listen. 

You’ve opened the Bible in a public place
You’ve opened the Bible to the very first page
And one of these days
It will all end
Your tired approach to original sin

As this story unfolds, the rest of the band slowly emerges behind him: guitar, drums, and a fiddle that carves its way through the mix beautifully. This track also features an upright bass and trombone courtesy of Landon George and backup vocals from Karly Hartzman. Other than a handful of assists like these, the guitar, drums, and bass found throughout Manning Fireworks were all played by Lenderman himself. Many familiar occupants of the Wednesday Cinematic Universe still appear throughout the album: you’ve got Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel, Ethan Baechtold on piano, and Colin Miller on trumpet as well as the aforementioned “slide bebo.” 

For all the talk of Lenderman’s Rorschach-like lyrics, there are moments when even Lenderman himself seems befuddled by others. At one point in “Rip Torn,” he recounts a confounding exchange

You said, “There’s men and then there’s movies.
Then there’s men and ‘Men in Black’”
You said, “There’s milkshakes and there’s smoothies.”
You always lose me when you talk like that

It’s nice to know that sometimes Lenderman gets turned around too. Usually, you’re not sure if he meant what he said to be so profound or funny, but usually, somehow, it’s both. I think the man himself addresses this pretty succinctly on “Joker Lips,” where he sings, “Please don't laugh only half of what I said was a joke / Every Catholic knows he could've been pope.”

On his early work (especially), it was easy to draw a clear connection between MJ and artists like Jason Molina. Some of that’s vocally, but a lot of it is spiritual, too. I think there are similar connections to be made between Lenderman and Neil Young, David Berman, Jim James, and Doug Martsch. Across his discography, there are in-song nods to classic rock legends like Dylan, Clapton, Zevon, and The Band, so this dude obviously knows his stuff. Even with all those reference points in mind, above all else, MJ Lenderman sounds like himself.

Nobody else could pen a line like “Kahlua shooter / DUI scooter” and deliver it like that. Only this mind could come up with, “I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome.” Only MJ Lenderman could write, “It falls apart / We all got work to do / It gets dark / We all got work to do” and make it sound that revelatory. The balance between these two polarities is what makes him one of my favorite songwriters to emerge this decade. 

Throughout these incredible lyrical flexes, there are a handful of artistic throughlines. Religion comes up a few times, as does romance and separation or misinterpretation. While you could read into the interpersonal stuff any type of way, I tend to think of those examples as little brush strokes that add detail to each individual character and, ultimately, MJ as a narrator. When all’s said and done, I take Manning Fireworks as a depiction and rejection of being a jerk. On “Rudolph,” the record’s lead single, MJ bemoaned

How many roads must a man walk down til he learns
He’s just a jerk who flirts with the clergy nurse til it burns?

Then, on the album’s opening track, Lenderman and Hartzman harmonize as the two sing a verse that seems to explain the record’s namesake. 

Once a perfect little baby
Who’s now a jerk
Standing close to the pyre, manning fireworks

How does one start so pure and end up so muddled? Well, the answers are infinite, and Manning Fireworks delves into but a handful of examples. To me, this record reads as a tome dedicated to documenting a select few of these journeys from a faultless point of origin to a messy, conflicted, and flawed person. The record is populated with odd people who are at once relatable and sympathetic yet ultimately feel like cautionary tales of who not to be. Sometimes, it’s an outright condemnation; most of the time, however, MJ seems content just to tell these stories and let the listener take their own interpretation away from his words. Anyone can be a jerk, but there’s much to be mined from how they got that way. 

In an interview with The Guardian earlier this year, MJ Lenderman was asked about the concept of “Dudes Rock,” a term that emerged in shitposty left-leaning spaces online whenever a man was seen doing something stupid, kinda dangerous, possibly ingenious, but mostly harmless. Over time, the phrase got obscured, watered-down, and over-used to the point where it became tired and cringey. Lenderman rejects this notion outright, explaining, “I don’t really resonate with whatever ‘dudes rock’ is. I don’t want the music to come across like it’s not inclusive to everybody – like somebody who’s not a dude.” Which is totally right. 

While that phrase was once meant to evoke carefree institutions like Jackass or, musically, bands like Japandroids, it’s since been perverted into something a tad more sinister. As astutely pointed out in his essay “The Death Of The Dude,” Jay Papandreas lays out the solitary dark side of Dudes Rock, explaining an important distinction in the namesake: “The Dude cannot rock alone. It's Dudes Rock, not Dude Rocks.”

To that end, the record wraps on “Bark At The Moon.” The song begins with Lenderman in free fall and looking for a connection.

I’ve lost my sense of humor
I’ve lost my driving range
I could really use your two cents, babe
I could really use the change

This unnamed other offers some advice in return.

You said it takes revision
You said it takes finesse
Don’t move to New York City, babe
It’s gonna change the way you dress
It’s gonna change the way you dress

After throwing up an SOS, the pair within this song splits off, with one person drinking to excess and the other hopping on a plane. “You’re in on my bit / you’re sick of the schtick / well what did you expect?” Lenderman says, sounding world-weary as ever. Our narrator goes on to detail his perceived lack of experiences, singing

I’ve never seen the Mona Lisa
I’ve never really left my room
I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero
Playing “Bark At The Moon”
Awoooo
Bark at the moon

We’re treated to one more rippin’ guitar solo, and then the instruments crash to a stop. All that’s left is a distorted singe of feedback. As this feedback sustains, it’s almost like you’re waiting for the band to come back on stage to play an encore. The air is still abuzz with energy and noise, but then… nothing. The band doesn’t come back. Instead, the drone stretches on for a little over six minutes until the song winds to a close and we’re left with silence on the other end of the record. 

I think that’s a super bold way to end an album, and I kinda love it. At first, I thought it was just a novel way to undercut a more traditional closer. I could close my eyes and practically see Lenderman’s guitar leaned up against an amp, each squealing into the other. Then I noticed something important in the album credits. 

Not only is this drone attributed to Lenderman, but practically every other featured player on the album. Karly Hartzman, Colin Miller, Landon George, Shane McCord, and Adam McDaniel are all credited on the track. To me, that attribution acts as one of the most poignant reminders of community and togetherness. This buzz that could have been achieved by one guitar is actually the work of multiple people. Imagining all these musicians in the studio (or on stage) sustaining this feedback like the shoegaze bands of yore, all building and mounting this one sound, is really beautiful. Most importantly, and most tellingly, that all-hands-on-deck feeling of bringing in all these friends and collaborators is a far cry from the jerk we heard about at the outset of the record, standing off by himself, manning fireworks.