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New Indie Kids on the Block: Sextet Londoners heed their place post-BCNR and fill it with soaring melodies and sweeping strings in a confectionary debut of delight.

When Ode to Clio dropped in 2024, many fanatics soon cultivated the same thought – Man/Woman/Chainsaw may just be the ‘something else’ we’ve been looking for. When they took to the stages almost a year ahead of their debut record, many saw just how marvellous they were. Well for a start, they were young and had that hungry look in their eyes. Plus, they had the music to back it up.

Simply put, Cannonball is the perfect debut with. Finding the sweet spot between the weird and the wonderful, Man/Woman/Chainsaw take us to dizzying heights with a record that really, shouldn’t be coming from a bunch of teenagers – makes the rest of the twentysomethings want to really pull their socks up. Of course, the teenage troupe’s music evolution hasn’t always been so concrete. Early EPs saw the good old fashioned trail-and-error from a bunch of eager musicians trying to come with their signature markings we hear plastered all over this project.

For want of a better word, the record is a goddamn beauty. An album blitzed with inventive colour and choreography, the eleven-track art traverses across the bands’ full palette. Only Girl and Nosedive lead from the front with their sweeping refrains that really wane in the Summer heatwaves. Vera’s lush vocals take centre stage on longing ballad Canyons (ticking off the wonderful) while Billy’s vocal lead takes him down the ravaged streets of a mechanised Godzilla (ticking off the weird).

Frenzied Get Up and Dance dips its toes in at the forest pools the likes of The New Eves no doubt often frequent while its follow-up Snakebite is just a beautiful blossoming of all members working like an well lubricated clock – asking for it to be longer being the only gripe. The Thing is a glimpse into the band having a bit more bite; a bit more alt-rock in makeup which, I don’t hate here. The album closes on Something Else to Give, a perfect closer with its constant swellings that peter out just as they had begun as a choral You don’t know what you’re offering fills the space. I think these guys know exactly what they’re offering: and it’s brilliant.

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