How would we describe our music? Really f***ing good.” So says Vera Leppänen, bassist/vocalist and one of many frontpersons in Man/Woman/Chainsaw, who don’t just possess the best band name since The Horrors, but have also backed it up with a recent debut album, Cannonball, which has been met with foaming-at-the-mouth acclaim. It is part of an exciting rush of summer releases by new British bands including Mary in the Junkyard, Really Good Time and Westside Cowboy — all suggestive of an indie revival not seen since the early 2000s. It’s led by south London’s DIY scene, from where M/W/C emerged, and it’s all about unconventional songs, odd instruments, kooky members, homemade visuals and a total rejection of the boring old trad male band set-up.
“We play rock music,” ventures guitarist/vocalist Billy Ward in an empty London Bridge pub. But they don’t. Well, they do; it’s just that they also play multiple other styles at the same time, so it’s barely recognisable. This is what happens when there’s a million of you in the band — OK, six — operating as a collective.
