Viagra Boys’ earlier full-length ‘Cave World’, a hyperactive and hilarious takedown of incels and conspiracy theorists, closed with enthusiastic directions, courtesy of ‘Return To Monke’: “depart society, be a monkey.” Whereas the observe satirises the regressive worldviews of the aforementioned misplaced souls, in sometimes nuanced Viagra Boys trend, it additionally acknowledges the extensively felt attraction of abandoning society in a world the place “everyone’s frightened concerning the future”.
The Stockholm band’s newest album ‘viagr aboys’ sees them try and observe their very own recommendation. In keeping with frontman Sebastian Murphy, their fourth LP is a “easy and silly” album, led from the off by the title’s linguistic chaos. He defined that “the entire political factor was exhausting”, implying that these 11 new tracks characterize his lyrical voice turning inwards, away from socio-political insanity and onto the easy stupidity of day-to-day existence.
Nevertheless, very like how life at the moment all-too-often feels, Viagra Boys’ new album is unable to disregard up to date anxieties. Quite a few tracks see Murphy arrange a secular, first-person scenario, corresponding to a visit to the vets on ‘Uno II’, or a well being scare on ‘Pyramid of Well being’, however digress into considerate, always-funny musings on western privilege and social media well being fads, respectively.
Opening observe and album spotlight ‘Man Made Of Meat’ encapsulates Murphy’s contradictions. The punk-funk anthem options extraordinary lyrics that oscillate between hilarious and severe, arch and trustworthy, and even private and political. References to “your mum’s OnlyFans” are laugh-out-loud humorous, however matched by lucid insights into modern-day malaise corresponding to “if it was 1970, I’d have a job in a manufacturing unit”.
Matching Murphy’s career-best lyrics are a number of the remainder of the band’s most eclectic compositions. The likes of the spacious ballad ‘Medication For Horses’, the anthemic electro-rock of ‘Waterboy’ and indescribable jazz-punk of ‘Greatest In Present Pt.IV’ are proof of a band as curious and contradictory as Murphy’s lyrics. They’re consistently looking out, with equally admirable zeal, for brand spanking new concepts, however typically revert again to what they know greatest; manic, bass-lead, post-punk pit-starters within the type of ‘The Lavatory Physique’ and ‘You N33D Me’.
The luxurious ‘Medication For Horses’ surmises the very human complexities of ‘viagr aboys’. “Kiss my spouse, inform her I like her,” Murphy croons, earlier than confessing that “inform her she was the one factor that made me cease occupied with the plains, the good plains of North America.” Maybe that is the easy and silly philosophical reality that Viagra Boys are getting at: love is the one factor that may cease us dropping our minds within the face of actuality’s horrors.
Particulars
- Document label: Shrimptech Information
- Launch date: April 25, 2025
