Cannonball: An Experimental Rock Debut That Refuses To Flatten Feelings
Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s Cannonball is an experimental rock music debut that uses indie rock genre-blending and art rock ambition to move through heartbreak, joy, and fury without repeating itself, proving that a debut album can be both sonically adventurous and emotionally grounded in lived reality. This is the rare art rock debut album that declares its intent in how it is built: 11 tracks that show different corners of the band’s personality while still sounding like the same six people in a room. The London-based collective spent four years between their first single and Cannonball, choosing to grow onstage before committing to a full-length. That patience pays off. Rather than a scrappy calling card, Cannonball arrives on 7 August via Fiction Records as a confident statement of purpose produced by Margo Broom and Seth Evans.
Four Years Of Loud Trial-And-Error
Cannonball feels surprisingly assured because Man/Woman/Chainsaw earned their voice the slow way: by playing every gig they could and getting things wrong in public first. It has been four years since their first single, during which they released the EP Eazy Peazy and standalone tracks like ‘Adam & Steve’ and ‘MadDog’ that flexed technical skill but did not yet carry the emotional span of the album. Those early years were spent, in Clio Starwood’s words, “playing really loud music that didn’t make much sense” before learning how to make that chaos coherent. Billy Ward is clear about the strategy: the band wanted to wait until they felt ready and needed time to “write the wrong songs to realise what was right”. According to the band, that live-first development is why Cannonball sounds mature even when it stays proudly immature in attitude.
Intentional Genre Diversity, One Emotional Arc
The heart of Cannonball is a philosophy: Man/Woman/Chainsaw refuse to write songs that sound the same, but they insist those songs belong together. Across its 11 tracks, the record moves from brooding post-punk to shimmering pop, snarling indie, classical melodrama and experimental art-punk without ever collapsing into genre tourism. Clio calls it “experimental in the fact it doesn’t stick to one genre… a little bit scattered but hopefully makes sense as a body of work”, and that is exactly the tightrope Cannonball walks. Critics have described the album as refined indie rock, pointing to earnest power pop, snarling grunge and emphatic post-rock explosions that coexist in balance rather than fight for attention. This is indie rock genre-blending with intention: the band know variety alone can win people over, but they are more interested in how those styles can share an identity.
Songs As Emotional Tools, Not Aesthetic Exercises
Crucially, Cannonball’s experimentation serves feeling rather than clever arrangement. The band talk about the record as a tool for listeners to overcome or embrace whatever they are feeling, and they hope it provides escapism as much as catharsis. That intent is audible: the visceral heartbreak of ‘Canyons’, the optimism of ‘Lighter’—with its line about someone making your “whole life lighter”—and the Nick Cave-inspired fury of ‘Goddamn, Lizard Man!’ map specific emotional climates instead of generic moods. Billy and Clio are frank that each member can relate the album to their own problems, even if they did not write every song. When critics call Cannonball “emotionally engaging” and, at times, “downright funny”, they are acknowledging that the band’s variety includes tone as much as genre. This is not experimental rock music designed to impress a niche audience; it is built to be useful to anyone who needs their feelings reflected back at them.
A Debut That Rewards Repetition, Even When It Stumbles
Cannonball is not flawless, and its flaws underline how ambitious it is. Some critics point out that tracks like ‘Snakebite’ feel like padding that slows the otherwise immediate rush of the record, proof that the band’s throw-everything approach can occasionally overextend itself. Yet those same critics emphasise how the album overcomes heavy anticipation and dodges the common fate of hyped debuts by sounding focused rather than rough around the edges. Across repeated listens, the record’s mood shifts and dynamic left turns feel more coherent, and its hooks grow stickier—especially the opening cut ‘Only Girl’, praised as arguably the catchiest moment here. It is lively, emotionally engaging and sometimes hilarious, but above all Cannonball proves Man/Woman/Chainsaw are not another buzzed-about London guitar band; they are a force determined to keep changing as they consume more art and move towards a second album that they expect will differ sharply from this debut.
