Viagra Boys
Welfare Jazz
Release Date: Jan 8, 2021
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Year0001
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Album Review: Welfare Jazz by Viagra Boys
Great, Based on 8 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Author rating: 8/10 Name Required Email Required, will not be published URL Remember my personal information Notify me of follow-up comments? Please enter the word you see in the image below: There are no comments for this entry yet. .
Based on rating 8
"We are the creatures down at the bottom" howls singer Sebastian Murphy midway through the latest filth-encrusted offering from Viagra Boys, a band who do indeed, on occasion, appear more horseshoe crab than human. Much like their 2018 debut 'Street Worms', 'Welfare Jazz' concerns itself with the internal lives of the scuzziest dregs of humanity: no-good drifters who lug their vintage calculator collections from couch to couch, self-deceiving junkies who regale hallucinatory conversations they have with their dogs with the listener, alcoholics who scream and ramble on about their problems and other assorted bottom feeders. Musically the band still sound like a gang of maladjusted street punks carrying out a hostile takeover of the local jazz bar.
Based on rating 8/10
On Street Worms, tales of drugs and mayhem bounced off oddball comedic episodes about dogs, online shopping and "surfing with your mom". Here on their second record, Welfare Jazz, the lyrical concerns remain the same, but a little of the bite and venom of the debut is replaced with a warmer, more accessible sound (which is no bad thing). That said, the overall impact of their glorious cacophony on Welfare Jazz is undiminished, and most importantly, it's just as funny as the debut.
Based on rating 8/10
Viagra Boys have aggressively explored their past struggles, negative habits and self-defeats. Life as a musician is a road filled with temptation in multiple forms -- it can be a hard lifestyle to find sanctuary in. On Welfare Jazz, the Swedish post-punks open up this conversation and let out a sincere sigh from start to finish. Opening track "Ain't Nice" is classic Viagra Boys: cacophonous and misanthropic.
Based on rating 7.2/10
Punk bands are a lot more careful with their satire than they used to be. Decades ago artists like The Fall or Nick Cave could get a pass for dropping racial slurs on the assumption of good intentions, but these days even punk's most subversive acts respect some basic sensitivities, at least the ones looking for play outside of edgelord circles and 4chan. For bands like Stockholm's Viagra Boys, whose values are basically progressive but whose presentation is brutalist and debauched, those shifting mores pose a challenge: how to provoke without offending or trolling.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Post punk, jazzy saxophones and some lines of speed. Viagra Boys are one head-scratching act to review. Their rather angular approach to music created some excellent tunes so far, but it already feels as if it pigeonholed them. Anyway, let them figure out their future, until then we can explore the second full length, Welfare Jazz. I love how these guys remind you that it's okay to poke fun at the most serious matters even if you hit rock bottom.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Saxophone-toting, tattoo-adorned Swedish punks Viagra Boys' penchant for all things grotty is a reputation that precedes them but, by the close of 'Welfare Jazz', the story might have a slightly more conflicted ending. Opening with the 'orrible stomp of recent single 'Ain't Nice' - a classic V Boys offering that finds singer Sebastian Murphy repeatedly declaring its title over filthy basslines - the band's second LP arrives with declarations of independence and bravado; 'Toad' kicks off with a strangely Elvis-esque spoken word piece before breaking into song ("I don't need no woman"), while interlude 'This Old Dog' is the first of three tracks in which canine behaviour becomes an analogy for their human counterparts' often less desirable qualities. The claustrophobic chugs and oppressive brass that marked their debut meanwhile are ever-hovering - sometimes pushed to the extreme such as on the hellish 'Girls & Boys' (definitely not a Blur cover); sometimes eschewed for occasional surprises such as the genuinely-rather-melodic 'Creatures'.
Opinion: Great
The Lowdown: If you find a political message in the music of Sweden's Viagra Boys, it wasn't necessarily put there on purpose. At least, that's the party line from singer and lyricist Sebastian Murphy, whose deadpan baritone and satirical send-up of hyper-macho posturing made the post-punk band's debut, Street Worms, essential listening in 2018. In a 2019 interview with Australia's Happy Mag, Murphy laid out his thoughts in full: "In a way, making music in itself is a political statement," the singer said.
'Welfare Jazz'
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