There is a phase in a young band’s development when they’re starting to find their form, understanding how to harness their collective power, but vestiges of their primordial freeform lunging remain.That’s where we now find Man/Woman/Chainsaw on the rising buzz band timeline.
It’s a tantalizing moment for a listener, a window into chaos being wrangled into order while still coursing with volatility.The youthful London combo, makers of “noisy, unadulterated art punk” by their own description, are dropping their Eazy Peazy EP Friday.
Produced by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, who’s also helmed great LPs by Sprints and Silverbacks, it’s Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s first release for the longstanding American indie label Fat Possum.With multiple lead vocalists and structures that never seem to repeat from track to track, it’s one of those records where every song has its own unpredictable flavor but they all seem to flow from the same collective consciousness.
Opener “The Boss” surges forward with an intensity that only seems to ratchet up as it goes, bassist Vera Leppänen railing against a composite of awful authority figures as Clio Harwood’s violin morphs into gnarly squalls of noise.One track later on “Sports Day,” guitarist Billy Ward is reliving traumatic adolescent athletic experiences over an off-kilter discordant groove.
Next comes “Maegan,” on which Pixies-esque banter quickly gives way to a delightful sonic blitzkrieg.The second half of the tracklist ventures into territory both soft and surreal while bringing back the explosiveness in strategic increments.
One of the lessons they learned from Fox in the studio: “If everything’s loud, nothing’s loud.” The band has come a long way since Ward and Leppänen were 16-year-olds covering Nirvana and Lana Del Rey in a bedroom.(They also cooked up a noise-rock version of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” sadly not for public consumption.) The duo spent lockdown learning how...