The Double Doghouse

hey yall! our album this week is viagr aboys, released by Swedish post-punk band Viagra Boys earlier this year in April.

viagr aboys really feels like an album about Guys. the dude in You N33d Me spouting history facts and ruining the party and the guy projecting his obession with bogs in The Bog Body and the health nut going off the deep end on The Pyramid of Health are all such vivid description of Kind of Guy that its enrapturing. id say Uno II, about a dog, still falls into this kind of cagetory. the lyrical first person style shifting rapidly between perspectives, each their own kind of warped, leads to some really neat moments. Man Made of Meat really is the perfect opener for this. it introduces so much of what goes into these other songs in varying amounts – diet and wellness, relationships to the internet and porn, and a kind of confident, unhinged ego. Best in Show, Pt IV is the frantic, rambling culmination of every type of strange guy examined previously – the single, run-on verse is punctuated by the bridge containing a cry for basically any kind of help and a core spiritual insecurity before bleeding into a really cool sax-driven back half of the song as the fever takes over. and that contrasts so starkly with the tenderness and sincerity in River King, which outros the album. very very nice.

the whole album has a kind of frantic drive to it – that might be a result of leading off with Man Made of Meat and the Bog Body, but musically this album hits the ground running and doesnt stop for almost the full run. i really appreciate the musical variety even within the punky space – its nice to have Pyramid of Health, for example, followed by the Electric Six-sounding Dirty Boyz. i love the heavy distortion on Waterboy, a song largely about being lost in a haze of drugs, where the distortion greats its own kind of haze over the tones of lyrics of the chorus. the much more frantic and psychadelic Store Policy spends the whole middle of its runtime creating a very fun, vivid soundscape including some really fun flute moments. and i mentioned the lyrical contrast on the closer, River King, but i think the instrumental shifts are important here – largely driven by the piano, punctuating the straining, soft voice with some light brass, its an excellent way to bring things to a close.

on the whole, really excellent album. very happy i was able to dig into this one, and man theres just some real gems here.

faves – Man Made of Meat, The Bog Body, Pyramid of Health, Dirty Boyz, Store Policy, Yoy N33d Me,
dislikes –

viagr aboys – 9/10

i’ll be back next week returning to Umphrey’s McGee with their record Zonky – in the meantime, please let me know what album you’d like me to review below!