The usual viagra Boys, arrogant, spraying, sarcastic, desecrating those of this fourth “Viagr Abays”. But a little softer.
The first thing that comes to mind, listening to the fourth effort of the Swedish post-post-Punk formation is that this time the band's songs can enchant and have fun even clearer ears, less accustomed to deliques dance punk arose and screeching. The news in the news is that a mitigation of the message does not correspond to this softening of sound.
Between storage for the objection for the external appearance (a “The Bog Body” accompanied by a very fun video clip) and attacks on modern society at any level (“Medicine for Horses”, “Store Policy”), the dynamitard social criticism of the Viagra Boys is in fact the same as “Cave World” of 2022 – unsurpassed summit of the Swedish band.
The no wave saxophones that shake the various “The Bog Body” and “Best in Show Pt. IV” are not new, but perhaps, in a more defined song context as such, they scratch more than in a more chaotic past. Instead, it is a beautiful and good surprise that after a sharp verse, innervated by Stop and Go Syncopate guitars, “man made of meat” entrusts an airy and easy to send refrain. The carpet of keyboards on which the nursery rhyme “Uno II” parades for sweetness.
“And if we opened a record like this, why not close it with one Piano Ballad to the Chiar di Luna “, the unleashed one must have thought frontman Sebastian Murphy starting to write the farewell piece of the “River King” album.
New apart from, whether or not they may like to the afraid Boys' aficionados, “Viagr Abays”, thanks to a new swarm of great songs, confirms the Swedes among the most valid and exhilarating interpreters of the (non) post-punk scene today. To which they approach without any fashionable motive and with a sharp and imaginative irony that does not fear any rival.
04/05/2025
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
