MJ Lenderman’s spit-and-sawdust alt-Americana album Boat Songs (2022) was acclaimed long before the latest country music renaissance, so expectations are elevated for its follow-up. The North Carolina singer-songwriter’s wry writing style, well suited to thumbnail character studies, still offers dry wit and pop culture references. Yet his fourth solo outing has darkness shadowing it too. Birds fly in and out of songs, maybe signifying freedom or its want, amid recurring references to alcohol, eschatology and the furnished emptiness of hotel rooms.

Still, there’s always the promise of redemption. Religion is the stew in which Manning Fireworks simmers (Lenderman hoped to be a priest when younger), so even impious couplets such as “Draining cum from hotel showers/ Hoping for the hours to pass a little faster” arrive with some empathy. The 25-year-old plays most instruments himself, but things never get too introspective or claustrophobic, even when the intimate production of the sparser tracks grabs you by the throat.

As the album unwinds, increasingly searing guitar solos and distortion accentuate the uneasiness in Lenderman’s lyrics. Superb single She’s Leaving You could be his best song yet, and epic drone freakout Bark at the Moon is a joyously weird closer.