With a name like Viagra Boys this band isn’t asking the world to take them seriously, most likely the opposite. This Swedish punk band deserves its own genre; it’s like Ween meets Idles. The band excels in having fun and using satire to point out the absurd nature of the world.
Their newest album, Viagr Aboys is no exception. This album is a fun listen and incredibly catchy, it will have you humming lines like “in a bog you are pickled, and, in a swamp, you are decomposed.” It will bring you sounds of punk to alternative to country; this sonic whiplash is what makes this album so interesting. While critiquing many things in day-to-day life, such as the over performative nature of the social media age, in ‘Man Made of Meat’, while never veering away from their fun-loving and joking style of music.
With a track list of only 11 songs long it manages to transcend genre and fall into completely unfamiliar territory at the end with a soft love ballad style song in “River King.”
‘The Bog Body’ is my favorite song on the album, I’m the person that would be humming “in a swamp, you are decomposed.” This song follows the discovery of a dead body in a bog. The energy in the song is what sells it for me, with the hammering drums and distorted guitar sounds. It will get you to want to yell along to a song about a body found in a bog. I don’t think there’s much more to say than that.
I can’t talk about this album without mentioning ‘Uno II,’ which translates to “one two”, I think, unless it’s a sequel to ‘Uno,’ the card game. actually, ‘Uno II’ is the name of the singer’s dog and this song is about going to the vet from the perspective of a dog, in a very Viagra boys’ fashion. This song will forever make you think of croutons when you see a futon and vice versa.
Cowpunk is, you guessed it, country mixed with punk and this is the biggest genre switch on the album, and they do it twice. The songs that use this style are ‘Pyramid of Health’ and ‘Medicine for Horses.’ ‘Pyramid of Health’ follows someone as they go through the process of healing from a satirical view point of wellness culture. While ‘Medicine for Horses’ is more closely related to country music, it has horse in the title. It is a very abnormal love song that reads like a love note written by an alien with little understanding of what’s romantic with nihilistic undertones.
The best sequel to a song about a dog show that doesn’t mention anything about a dog is ‘Best in Show pt. IV. This song isn’t anything like the two previous songs by the same name, there is no ‘Best in Show III.’ This song is somehow the most removed from reality. It seemingly is the creation of a mythos of this person who stole Poseidon’s trident and ascends through many different situations and escapes from governmental cabals.
Rapid fire, these songs didn’t click with me, but they still are worth the listen. ‘Dirty Boyz’ is a high energy nearly dance punk song about a group of meth heads.
‘Waterboy,’ is not about Adam Sandler, but rather a social outsider who looks for his place in life through chemical abuse and quick dopamine hits.
‘Store Policy,’ is an angry song about the rules but it’s drenched in pop culture references from forever stew to cryptocurrency.
‘You N33d Me,’ the words are written on the singer Sebastian’s chest. The song reflects the time in his life when he got the Tattoo. It has a fun breakdown near the middle where he just drops trivia about wars.
Viagra boys released a surreal album with ‘Viagr Aboys’ and somehow maintained their own sound and identity. This album utilized a mixture of humor and irony to convey meaningful messages, while never taking themselves too seriously, leaving room for the songs to be goofy and evolve out of the traditional box of art-punk. It didn’t lose any of the old Viagra Boys identity but still made its own unique sound removed from past albums.
