Shocking listeners with punk-rock satire about humans turning back into monkeys used to be as simple as donning an energy dome and a yellow jumpsuit and refusing to get off the stage until the audience was appropriately repulsed. These days, when cultural and political devolution feel like the starting point rather than a bleak warning, Stockholm’s forehead-tatted Viagra Boys have their work cut out for them.
Their latest LP, Cave World, is fascinated by the conspiracy theories and regressive tendencies of an increasingly visible subset of the online right, following its obsession with traditional values and gender roles to an only somewhat less logical conclusion: a full-on reversion to the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. After last year’s well-received Welfare Jazz, the Boys re-recorded a cache of existing material while American-born vocalist Sebastian Murphy rewrote the lyrics from scratch, stewing on the buzzwords and crises of summer 2021: anti-vaxxers, adrenochrome, mental health, gun violence. Howling loudly and often that “they’re putting little creepy crawlies in the vaccines” (“Creepy Crawlers”), or that a dose might turn you into a computer (“Return to Monke”), Murphy nails the talking points with humor and near zero gravity.
Try as they might to curry offense by embodying the mindset of the alt-right internet troll, Cave World’s weaker moments recall a late-night television monologue: toothless, expendable, and not particularly interested in convincing the uninitiated. The opening lines of “Creepy Crawlers”—“I can’t believe what I read last night/Man, there’s little kids growing up with animal hair/Some of ’em are growing up with tails, maybe even two tails, man”—lays it on too thick to be dangerous. If the merits of Capital-S Satire might be judged by locating it on a spectrum ranging from prescience to disposability, one might ask: Will this project continue to engage (or enrage) audiences 25 years from now? What about five? Viagra Boys’ ripped-from-the-headlines caricature sketches are better timed to get you through the afternoon.
Luckily, what Cave World lacks in bite, it tends to make up for in groove. The production is cleaner than Viagra Boys’ first two albums, bringing their ever-present drive to the fore. The interplay of the rhythm section, vocal layering, and the occasional sax tear elides some of the weaker lyrics, and the album’s bass-forward gloss recalls Danger Mouse’s back catalog of rock-oriented production work (Parquet Courts’ Wide Awake, the Black Keys’ El Camino, Portugal. The Man’s Woodstock). Sieving out the grit from the arrangements introduces crossover potential. Take “Troglodyte,” a Fun House-era Stooges song squeezed through the discourse ringer. Over bouncing bass, Murphy’s verses introduce a WFH-addled gun nut before gleefully asserting that, even in prehistoric times, he’d be as much of an outcast as he is today: “You ain’t no ape/You’re a troglodyte.” It’s their silliest and most salient point on the record: Turning back the clock might not be the salvation that the song’s subject imagines.
Other cuts, like opener “Baby Criminal” and “Punk Rock Loser,” ditch the Trevor Noah-level satire for the band’s inexhaustible pet subject: the 21st-century manchild. Ever since their debut single, “Sports,” Viagra Boys have been intimately acquainted with the half-drunk, half-stoned, laptop-scrolling ex-boyfriend type. He’s a doofus, and a dick, but ultimately harmless. Write what you know, they say, and on their less explicitly political songs, the Boys’ perspective feels more fully and compassionately realized. The digressions from Cave World’s primary theme are welcome reprieves, fun and dumb in equal measure. They bring to mind Viagra Boys’ Swedish rock predecessors, the Hives: Both bands are at their best when they aren’t taking their output too seriously, maybe even when they’re having a little too much fun for what they’re saying to matter.
In press materials, Murphy opines that, while the world feels weird and “stupid” right now, “I kind of like when stuff is a little stupid.” The big-time stupid stuff—the kind of stupid more accurately described as frightening, disturbing, or unnerving—requires a defter, steadier touch than Viagra Boys’ hops-stained hands can manage. Not every punk band in the world needs to ponder the big picture, though; there’s room on the dial both for those who warn of impending devolution, and those who are content to just monkey around.
