London quintet Man/Woman/Chainsaw show off their talent on their debut EP, but leaves you wanting just a little bit more.

Local quintet Man/Woman/Chainsaw started playing together in secondary school, during the pandemic. That makes them about 20 years old. By most calculations they should still be drinking cheap wine at university and making too many mistakes. Getting signed by leftfield tastemaker label Fat Possum definitely doesn’t fall into the latter category, and with their new EP Eazy Peazy, the talented troupe of multi-instrumentalists are putting it all together, and showcasing the potential they have even when they falter. 

In the growing trend of genre ambiguity taking over London’s underground scene, Man/Woman/Chainsaw are another entry. Their name says as much. They’ve made their bones playing frantic live shows at increasingly sweaty venues, and having played their 100th gig even before the release of this EP, have built up quite the mythology of themselves. The man and woman are easy to pick out, but the lead candidate for the chainsaw leaves much to be debated. On the opening track ‘The Boss’ for example, it might be gunfire drums right from the start, the prog-rock adjacent power guitars, or the violin arpeggios that cut through it all. Maybe it’s the way the vocals stretch past bar lines on ‘Grow A Tongue In Time’, really letting the emotion come through. Or on ‘Ode To Clio’, where the warm bass and interplay between stripped back vocals with the free-flowing piano line set up the violin that grows incrementally more berserk. ‘Ode’ really showcases how far the group have come in adding structure to their disparate sound too, all the instrumentation builds until the final breakdown, where you hear all the different musical lines reintroduced, in a different context now with all the others. Clio Harwood’s violin captures a perfect agitated tone, and so often introduces so much new texture to each track that maybe her alone is the chainsaw. But that would discount the layers of orchestral complexity that come with Emmie Avery’s piano, or the tight percussion from Lola Cherry. When all put together, it’s really the energy between all the various parts of the machine and the way they interact that comes through the most clearly.

While the group do have growing knack for measuring energies, a few tracks fall a little short. Noise interlude ‘Maegan’ is short and manic, but doesn’t feel like it justifies its place in the tracklist, even if the chaos is a little fun. Opener ‘The Boss’ is strong in its buildup, and the band chanting “I’ll huff your efforts up my nose” is undoubtedly fun, but it feels like the song moulds a bigger song that it never becomes. ‘Grow A Tongue In Time’ suffers from a similar predicament, where the upward chord structure points in a certain direction, but doesn’t follow through. That said, a track like ‘Sports Day’ is simple, but contains very witty lyrics about an unwilling participant at the titular sports day. The bassline is dynamic, and features some truly excellent vocal harmonies that open the track right up at the end. Closer ‘EZPZ’ features a grand orchestral arrangement, Harwood’s violin motif cutting through the noise once again, and great drum break setting up the finale. 

This debut EP showcases all the very many strengths that Man/Woman/Chainsaw possess: their vast, almost operatic arrangements with polyphonic instrumental interplay, a great command of their individual instruments, and a really mean violinist. It also shows that the full potential of their talents hasn’t fully been pieced together quite yet, with some tracks feeling out of place or maybe needing just a bit more development and variety. Nonetheless, as London bands that lie in the ambiguous post-punk-art-rock territory that they do, Man/Woman/Chainsaw prove they have what it takes to carve our their own space, and their debut should leave many waiting on their next move.