Man/Woman/Chainsaw - Cannonball Review
The fêted South London crew’s full-length debut catapults them further into the spotlight. Refreshingly shorn of irony, and unafraid to draw on their pop nous, it’s their most panoramic, assured and openhearted work yet.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw are one of the most impressive bands operating at the moment. The sextet of Billy Ward (vocals/guitar), Emmie-May Aver (vocals/keys), Vera Leppänen (vocals/bass), Clio Starwood (violin), Lola Cherry (drums) and Billy Doyle (guitar) are all barely out of their teens. Since this lineup’s inception, they’ve played over two hundred shows. And now signed to indie label legend Fiction – longtime home of The Cure, to put things into perspective – they have constructed a remarkable debut album. It’s enough to make you weep.
Being firmly entrenched in gigging before releasing the majority of their early material, their studio selves were understandably deeply shaped by the atmospherics of frequented locales such as the Windmill in Brixton early on. Arguably, this wasn’t necessarily in their favour. Their debut EP – 2024’s Eazy Peazy – thrived in its second half, dropping the faux-causticity of the opening trio of songs and widening berth to a richer emotional and instrumental arsenal. Tracks like ‘The Boss’ or ‘Sports Day’ just seemed eager to strongarm towards an acerbic post-punk in-joke that they weren’t really, well, in on.
The band have, admittedly, been self-aware about this uncomfortable dichotomy since. Thus, much like how their relentless touring has sharpened their live chops, more time huddled around the boards has coaxed their melodic impulses to stand alongside the artier segments.
During an era of top 40 stagnation, it’s often hard to remember that great pop music is as often constituently experimental as well as deftly hooky. Man/Woman/Chainsaw are now jolting this back into focus, first shown on the standalone singles released between Eazy Peazy and Cannonball. Ward and Leppänen’s vocal trading on ‘Adam and Steve’ brings to mind an ABBA braised in Brixton, compounded by Aver’s thumping keys and the high drama of Starwood’s enlacing violin phrases. Follow-up ‘MadDog’ was the most assured truce yet between those aforementioned warring halves, contrasting a raspier, masochistic initial section with the sobering jangle that ensues.
With Margo Broom and Seth Evans at the helm – last seen co-producing the singles from My New Band Believe’s self-titled album earlier this year – sessions for Cannonball continued this newfound truce, drawing from songs that made their bones on setlists past, plus a crop written in a flurry after confirmation of Fiction’s backing.
Written as part of the latter batch in an intensive tracking session, ‘Nosedive’ was the single tied to the album’s initial announcement and the benchmark for their consolidated sound and ethos. Originally an 8-minute megalith, the band’s more judicious approach to editing resulted in the no-less-gutpunching version that makes the cut. Condensing its anxieties about leaving a relationship into a whirl of synth-led intensity, it gradually clambers to fever pitch, gang vocals ripped from throats as they form pleas of escape. Little wonder they’ve cited LCD Soundsystem as an influence on the song: it trembles with the same universal angst as their eternal ‘All My Friends.’
Similar unpretentious passions are exposed throughout the LP. Praise for a partner’s dedication gushes from ‘Lighter’, an aptly weightless ballad that betrays the group’s adoration of Adele’s 21. Its tumbling piano is a punchdrunk centerpiece, flanked by sugary post-rock sinew so dreamy it risks evaporating like unsaid words on lovers’ lips. Meanwhile, closer ‘Something Else To Give’ flips the script, recounting in visceral detail the lengths the narrator would go for an ultimately unreciprocal relationship. Starwood’s violin really shines here, layered strokes vocalising the cutting pain only whispered in its damning cornerstone phrase: “you don’t know what you’re offering.”
As confident with the dynamism of human emotion as the rise and fall of the music they soundtrack it with, their willingness to lyrically mount themselves on a cross permits the buzzing flights of headrush sensations to feast. A uniquely Gen-Z perception pushes every transient thought or doubt into full view, whilst also offering alternative takes on timeworn topics. For example, we’ve seen the slimy Janus in ‘Goddamn, Lizard Man!’ and ‘Get Up and Dance’ lamented across pop history from ‘Smooth Operator’ to ‘Red Right Hand.’ Less have we witnessed them depicted as vividly as all-teeth-smiling manipulators; nor have their discotheque antics been subverted as horrifyingly as the obsessive violence that ‘...Dance’ goads (“sign my name up on your skin / so when you bleed I’m seeping in”).
Though Cannonball is brimming with praiseworthy items, special mention has to go to the relay between Ward, Aver and Leppänen’s vocals. Amongst the locked-down rhythm section carried forth by Cherry’s drums – which practically disavows staying still while listening – and Doyle’s sludgy chemtrails of guitar, standout deep cut ‘The Thing’ truly explodes under their three-strong harmony. Part rasp, part silk – a contrast, crucially, never gendered – it plunges through each stampeding climax: sometimes desperate (on ‘Canyons’), sometimes righteous (see ‘Still Angry’), always arresting.
It feels like a bit of an understatement to say Man/Woman/Chainsaw have hit the ground running on this album. Instead, they’ve crashed through the ceiling and only plan on looking upwards. Long may their ascension continue.