Review: MJ Lenderman, Marble Factory – ‘Stayed cool amid the rising heat’

The pigeon that flew out of the Marble Factory’s warehouse should have probably warned me from the start that MJ Lenderman’s Bristol debut was going to get loud quickly.

As my head turned to follow its flight arc, I climbed to the balcony with legs that were still recovering from a weekend-long beating at the recent Love Saves the Day festival to assume a more comfortable viewing point of an unlikely indie heartthrob for the 2020s.

Having turned heads with last year’s record Manning Fireworks, it seems like the casual demeanour of Lenderman has only served to achieve a more serious commercial success following his guitar work in his band, Wednesday.

While he may no longer be the band’s touring musician, it seems his presence in the studio is still very much evident in the spacey lap steel guitar of new single Elderberry Wine, released on May 21.

Lenderman isn’t your typical indie heartthrob but has forged solo success after touring as guitarist with Wednesday

An unassuming collection of musicians dressed in t-shirts and jeans took to the stage. They surrounded a particularly slender Lenderman (no pun intended) at its centre.

On the first stop of his tour, and his first show in Bristol as a solo act, he quietly lifted his guitar into the air as the lights dimmed and Yo La Tengo soundtracked his entrance.

What followed was a blasting rendition of Rudolph at the behest of his battered Gibson SG.

Channelling his inner Thurston Moore, he waved the instrument in the air to conjure clouds of shrill feedback, before softly dragging it back along the floor as gentle vibrations cascaded between the guitar’s pickups and its speaker cabs.

 

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What struck me was how willing Lenderman was to pair sections of ambient dissonance with softer verse-chorus-verse song structures.

Although he was more than happy to take a turn into more aimless sonic territory, he was equally able to punctuate his setlist with moments of sincerity, particularly when he devoted the song Pianos from his benefit album for the flood relief in his hometown of North Carolina.

The show was enjoyed by a packed Marble Factory, despite the rising heat

One thing that became increasingly apparent to me as his set continued, despite the increasingly rising temperature of the warehouse, was how I had mistaken Lenderman before the show as being insincere.

For an artist happy to sing about ‘draining cum from hotel showers’, and with lyrics comparing milkshakes to smoothies, his in-person demeanour was more striking than his studio personality.

Wittingly dismissing the now kettle-like internal atmosphere of the Marble Factory, he playfully quipped: ‘It’s better to be too hot than too cold: it’s hard to play guitar when my hands are cold.’

While I wish the building could have been better ventilated, Lenderman stayed cool amid the rising heat for a rousing and contemplative performance.

All photos: Benji Chapman

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