After I posted my interview with Owen Burton of Ovven this week, I heard some murmurs — positive and negative — about his music being overly indebted to MJ Lenderman. On the slower, twangier numbers, the resemblance to (if not overt influence of) Manning Fireworks is impossible to miss. Though I would counter that with two points — one, the guitars on the uptempo numbers are thicker and sludgier than they are in Lenderman’s work (more akin to Hotline TNT or Wild Pink’s Dulling The Horns, both of which came up in our interview) and, two, I don’t really care whether an album is derivative if the songs are great. Which is to say: I welcome the “Stone Temple Pilots phase” of Lenderman-esque alt-country — which from now on we’ll refer to as “the Lendermen” — also signaled by Swan, the latest album by New Zealand’s Fazed On A Pony.