Label: Year0001
Released: 8th July 2022
At the very end of Viagra Boys’ new album ‘Cave World’, singer and frontman Seb Murphy describes the clean-up process after a murder in Japan. Delivered in a monotone, he explains how the furniture is moved, the crime scene meticulously sanitised, and the stained carpet replaced quickly and efficiently. It’s an unorthodox way to end an album, but it’s also an apt metaphor for what precedes it.
Each track on Cave World feels a bit like this (hopefully) fictional murder scene – 3 or 4 minutes of insanity, which is cleaned up so quickly it’s hard to work out what exactly just happened. Tracks about children building nuclear devices (‘Baby Criminal’) sit side by side with detailed explanations of scientific theories about the evolution of the human brain (‘The Cognitive Trade-off Hypothesis’).
This off-the-wall subject matter will come as no surprise to long-time fans of the band, with announcements often made via videos from the fictional ‘Shrimptech Enterprises’ and previous song topics ranging from sporting prowess (‘Sports’) to storing vintage calculators at your partner’s house (‘Ain’t Nice’).
The punk spirit of those tracks is still here, particularly on ‘Ain’t no Thief’ and ‘Troglodyte’, the album’s first two singles, but also rearing its head on the Sleaford Mods-featuring’ Big Boy’. It’s where the wall of noise fades out that things get interesting, though. Both ‘The Cognitive Trade-off Hypothesis’ and ‘ADD’ are stripped-back, skeletal synth numbers which ditch the capacity for mosh pits and push the lyrics to the fore.
Despite these changes in tone, the quality of ‘Cave World’ is much more consistent than the band’s previous albums. It all feels much tighter than the band have been before, and is the first full-length project the band have released where each track could feasibly be picked as somebody’s favourite.
Viagra Boys’ charm has always been the combination of genuine musical prowess with absurd, hilarious lyrics and a sleazy, speed-dealer aesthetic. On ‘Cave World’, they’ve perfectly balanced these three aspects and made their best work to date. The shareholders at Shrimptech Enterprises will be delighted.
