Society's most loathsome ideas are occasionally top of the line confronted by means of the unlikeliest of cultural critics. just study Viagra Boys, a Stockholm-based mostly punk-rock outfit whose very identify is a parody of hypermasculinity and raging alpha adult males' time-honored lack of ability to operate. however their musical performances—on checklist and especially onstage—are nothing if not effective. The non secular descendants of organizations like Nick Cave and the unhealthy Seeds, the fall, and the Butthole Surfers, Viagra Boys are universal for making the type of rumbling, menacing music that critics like to call post-punk. as with all splendid act of that ilk, their genuine power comes as a lot from their sound because it does from the caustic bite of their worldview.
And wager what? Viagra Boys hate fascists. In selected, they hate the Sweden Democrats, the some distance-right birthday party waging an ideological struggle on immigrants and religious minorities that carried 18 percent of the vote within the most fresh universal election. "this is not a majority, however's nonetheless a great deal," bassist Henrik Höckert says via an afternoon Zoom call. "Twenty years in the past, they had 1.5 p.c." "they're the Nazis, pretty a lot," provides Sebastian Murphy, the band's half-Swedish, half-American lead singer, who grew up in the Bay area however has made his domestic in Stockholm for a dozen years.
Lead singer Sebastian Murphy on the Stockholm waterfront.
"Half of it's an act, and half of it is sort of a diary in a way," Murphy says of his work. "I don't do it consciously, however subconsciously it turns into satire of myself and others."
That disdain for correct-wing extremists and their boorish patriarchy in decline is utterly manifest on Welfare Jazz, the alternately narcotic and blistering new Viagra Boys album, their 2nd full-size in view that 2018. Their debut LP, highway Worms—together with their bleakly humorous, semi-narrative track videos—garnered them a cult following, and three years later, when reputedly all mainstream manliness comes with a ramekin of extra toxicity on the aspect, the Viagra Boys' company of social punditry seems poised to damage through to a much broader audience. On brooding, pulsing tracks, Murphy proves himself an authority chronicler of the darker corners of the male brain, dissecting masculinity in all its ridiculousness while he sings in persona as one of the most hapless shitheads he is criticizing. "I are not looking for no woman telling me when to head to mattress," he wails on "Toad," later explaining, "as a result of i have been dwelling on the outskirts of society my total existence." it be a grim continuation of the topics he explored on "identical to You," a highlight from street Worms. Murphy spends lots of the track drawling about pleasantries like the little dog he and his loving spouse have of their fine residence. but there's a sneer in his voice and a bitter tablet embedded within the dreamlike lyrics. on the end, our narrator is happy to wake and discover himself lower back in his actual, dismal life, his "on no account-ending hate for this completely fucked-up society" intact. "Thank God I by no means went to school," he concludes. "Thank God I failed to come to be just like you."
Murphy's lyrics pull off the elaborate trick of balancing his performing persona with his position as trenchant observer. "it be 50–50," he says. "Half of it's an act, and half of it is sort of a diary in a means. I don't do it consciously, however subconsciously it turns into satire of myself and others." This kind of darkly humorous character-primarily based lyricism locations Murphy in a proud lineage. He cites as strands of his personal creative DNA "lots of country artists and the type of ancient punk that incorporated comedy into the lyrics—not simply anger and melancholy." really, the new album ends with a lumbering, unsettling cover of John Prine's "even with Ourselves," with Amy Taylor from Australian punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers taking over the half that Iris DeMent sang within the long-established. it be a kind of transcendent songs that proudly celebrate love among the fallen classification, and it serves because the ultimate capstone to Welfare Jazz.
or not it's additionally a testomony to Viagra Boys' latitude. On the new album, their sound is often as heady as it is hardcore, a occasionally trance-inducing, gradual-burn track that blends points of electronica and lo-fi with greater traditional punk. "it's in fact about finding a groove you are looking to play for half an hour," says saxophonist (that is right, saxophonist) Oskar Carls. "In that manner or not it's like dance music. The band itself isn't so a great deal in focal point; it be more in regards to the vibe—however not in a hippie means," he clarifies. "Yeah, it be no longer hippie—let's make that very clear," says drummer Tor Sjödén, elevating an admonishing finger into the air.
Oh, and about that album title: "Welfare Jazz is like free jazz—the kind of track you cannot are living on," says Höckert. So it's a defiant observation, a way of announcing that Viagra Boys will play the track they want, despite whether it ends up in employ payments or now not. And it hasn't, at the least now not yet. all and sundry within the neighborhood continues day jobs, and happily so. Murphy is an accomplished tattoo artist whose commissions blessedly haven't dried up right through the pandemic. Höckert is a wood worker and therefore, in a similar fashion, is in a enterprise that has been capable of growth lately. "Nothing's changed for me," he says. "people truly need to renovate more than ever due to the fact that they may be domestic all of the time."
Murphy says he's also been moonlighting a bit, contributing lyrics and guttural incantations to a contemporary album with the aid of his chum Isak Hedtjärn's free-jazz group. "it be a bit like spoken observe," he says. "Captain Beefheart-y stuff." Writing lyrics throughout genres has made him mirror anew on his songwriting and on the studies he tells on Welfare Jazz. simply as lots because the album is a critique of doomed patriarchy, he explains, the songs are fueled via sober self-examination—a tough seem to be at the ennui and guilt that adopted a recent breakup. "The entire relationship, i used to be taking velocity day by day and sort of lying about it," he says. "as soon as we broke up, i spotted what an asshole i would been, and i regretted every thing and desired to do all of it once again. however it become too late." happily, Murphy is an old hand at pulling paintings out of his nosedives. As he places it, "The handiest manner i will be able to go forward is with the aid of fucking up."
Jesse Pearson is the founder and editor of 'Apology' magazine and the host of the 'Apology' podcast, the place he talks with a considerable number of cultural figures about books and analyzing.
A version of this story at first appears in the February 2021 issue with the title "A Heavy Dose of Viagra Boys."
creation credit:images by using Anton CorbijnGrooming with the aid of Nenad Vukasin
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