IN REVIEW: Viagra Boys - "Cave World"

 

Quickly following up last year's highly lauded effort Welfare Jazz, Viagra Boys' third album looks to build on the momentum of buzz received from that record while refining the best elements of their sprawling core sound. Cave World starts out with the snarling, groovy Baby Criminal, a thrilling and electric opener that finds Sebastian Murphy (the American born leader of the Swedish group) wrapping his typically unhinged vocal delivery around the story of a person's evolution from a beautiful baby to a dangerous man; this sinister tale plunges the listener deep into the cutting satire of Cave World, an album that sets out to reflect our dark modern times through the fictional exploits of characters who connive, murder, steal and commit all manner of wrongdoings.

Troglodyte keeps the manic groove going, calling out the song's science denying gun owner as someone who wouldn't have been accepted by his fellow apes in pre-evolutionary times; it's a humorous take on the red baseball cap crowd, and one that's taken further later. In the meantime, we reach Punk Rock Loser, another easy-going, groovy tune that paints a perhaps semi-autobiographical picture of a self-proclaimed "loose" rocker who admits his many shortcomings even as he glows himself up in the mirror and professes himself to be cool, defending himself in the relationship by basically saying, "I warned you I was loose".

What follows is perhaps the album's most gloriously unhinged moment; Creepy Crawlers finds Murphy doing his best manic Nick Cave while detailing a deliciously improbable conspiracy theory involving human harvesting, microchips in vaccines and children with gills and animal hair. It's incredible in its ridiculousness, and Murphy absolutely revels in the chance to lampoon this nonsense; this confidence sells the performance and, in turn, makes the track more effective. This transitions into The Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis, a more methodical number that revisits our species' evolution and how it relates to Murphy's ADD (another subject that's touched upon again later). It's not as wild a song as what came before, but its warbled background noises and off-kilter melody, sitting atop a bouncy beat, all combine for a pleasant mid-point song.

The second of three short interludes leads into the second half, which starts in earnest with lead single Ain't No Thief; this is another excellent display of humour in which the song's protagonist, despite obviously being at fault, is incredulous at the accusation of stealing a jacket and lighter. A likely allegory for anyone who stubbornly sticks to their misguided beliefs, its high energy dance-rock core combined with Murphy's off-the-rails vocals make this one a clear highlight of the record. It's followed by yet another winner in Big Boy, wherein Murphy (with a near Tom Waits flair) proclaims himself repeatedly as both a "big boy" and a "grown-ass man" over a lazy, funky rhythm that's occasionally punctuated by warped guitar playing; the song sounds loose and tossed off in the best way, morphing into something approximating peak Beck halfway through. By the time Sleaford Mods' Jason Willaimson shows up in the last 90 seconds to act as Murphy's hype man, it's all become so sublimely deranged it's incredible.

ADD is probably the most personal song on Cave World, because it talks about some of the day-to-day struggles that result from Murphy's ADD (according to the Apple Music notes, he was diagnosed as a teen); a thumping dance beat and a hollow synth melody do the heavy lifting on this one, although the guitar's arrival on the choruses adds some nice flavour. Then there's one last interlude before closing track Return to Monke which, once again, takes it back to the evolutionary subject matter; the song invites the conspiracy theorists and other assorted undesirables to "leave society, be a monkey", insinuating that those people are already devolved anyway, so why not just go live in the jungle? Yet another ludicrous concept that's executed so well, this song rips, slashes and bounces along like a modern, slacker take on Rage Against the Machine that ends with a wall of noise and some spoken word; it's an epic, chaotic and cathartic end to the record.

While its satire may rub some conservative-leaning listeners the wrong way, and it's not quite as restlessly experimental as Welfare Jazz, Cave World is a consistently entertaining, dense and tuneful affair that isn't afraid to look stupid in order to prove its point. Like the protagonist of Punk Rock Loser, this record is confident and unapologetic (and, most of all, it's loose); it's also, despite addressing some rather scary segments of our society, perhaps the most fun I'll have listening to a record all year.

July 8, 2022 • YEAR0001

Highlights Baby Criminal • Ain't No Thief • Return to Monke