Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz Review
We still have a lot of the vocal charisma, great production and humour that was present before, but Welfare Jazz just doesn’t hit home in the same way – despite still being a solid record.
The last album from Swedish post-punk band Viagra Boys, Street Worms, while never gaining a huge amount of traction, was probably one of the most exciting post-punk releases of the past five years. Combining some real punk energy with some more unique production and humorous lyrics, it really stood out from the crowd of what was arguably an over-saturated market in that genre. As such, their new album, Welfare Jazz, was a release that I was really quite excited for. However, there is something present on Street Worms which is missing a little from this latest release: immediacy. We still have a lot of the vocal charisma, great production and humour that was present before, but Welfare Jazz just doesn’t hit home in the same way – despite still being a solid record.
The opener, “Ain’t Nice”, is pretty much exactly what I was expecting and hoping for from new Viagra Boys music. It combines the same catchiness and unhinged energy that made the last album so good, while also being fresh enough that it doesn’t just sound like it should have been on that record. The lyrics paint the picture of a narrator with a punk attitude and bravado who doesn’t want to change for anyone, which is enriched by the typical Viagra Boys untethered and abrasive instrumental. Despite these qualities to the sound, the track doesn’t at all sound overly messy, overall making for a really strong opener and lead single, which had me very excited for the rest of the album.
We are then met by a saxophone interlude, “Cold Play”, which leads us into the next full-length track: “Toad”. This one has a sort of Wild-West country-punk vibe to it, aided by the accent put on by lead singer, Sebastian Murphy. The instrumentals have a tense feeling to them, but it feels like this tension is never properly released throughout the track. Lyrically, this track builds on the attitude of the last song, whereby our narrator discusses not needing nor wanting a relationship, but with an angle of it being through his own stubbornness that it wouldn’t work: “Yeah, you can't change this old hound dog”. Following another interlude, we then have “Into the Sun”. In a similar way to “Toad”, this song is enjoyable but doesn’t particularly blow me away. The slow, driving bass line is really strong, setting the pace well for the track which is to have a more vulnerable feeling to it within the entire Viagra Boys catalogue.
The first track which I genuinely dislike on this record is “Creatures”, largely down to how sonically jarring it is compared to the album so far. Stylistically, it just feels like it doesn’t belong here at all, being a clean synth-pop ballad in an otherwise fairly chaotic post-punk album. On top of this, the lyrics don’t fit the overall narrative of the rest of the album either. In itself, it’s not necessarily a particularly bad track, but it is just so out of place in the middle of this album.
Contrastingly, one thing I really love on this album is “Best in Show II”, a sequel to Street Worms’ “Best in Show”. This kind of absurdist humour, I feel, really sets Viagra Boys out from the rest of the post-punk crowd, particularly with the charismatic performance of Murphy on both of these spoken word tracks. The short track following this, “Secret Canine Agent”, contains similarly bizarre dog-related lyrics, with their trademark unhinged-yet-tight sound, doing again what the band does best. It’s just a shame this track doesn’t last longer than it does, nor does it play into the narrative of the rest of the album.
“I Feel Alive”, however, brings us back from the thematic hiatus in the middle of the album, as it seems our narrator has fallen in love: “The whole damn world can see me smile/I haven't felt like this in quite a while”. This track also slows down the pace a fair bit, with a slacker, bluesy feeling to it, particularly thanks to the drunken-sounding vocals and the piano chords, which also sound a little like they are being played drunkenly. This sound really plays into the strength of this track, whereby the narrator seems so overcome by emotion, it would be almost contradictory if this sounded too clean. “Girls & Boys” is another strong track towards this end of the list, again with some more unhinged punk energy and charismatic vocals – I particularly enjoy the shrimp impression he gives. Again, lyrically there are allusions to the self-destructive nature of the narrator, with lines such as “Yeah one day I'ma burn it down”.
Unfortunately, I feel that the album ends on a relatively weak note, particularly with “In Spite of Ourselves”. Of the two, “To the Country” is the stronger: an atmospheric ballad about running away to the countryside with the lover of our narrator. The closer, however, I find to be a little over-produced, and the gaudy American accent in both of these tracks is a little bit on the nose too.
There’s a real inconsistency to this album, which makes it quite a jarring listen front-to-back. However, that said, when Viagra Boys are at their best – as they often are here – there are very few punk bands who do it as well as they do. Sebastian Murphy, in particular, is a testament to this with his ever-charismatic delivery. The attempt at a narrative running through the album also showed that the band have the ability to be a bit more ambitious with their writing than they were on their previous album. Despite this, due to many tracks being quite forgettable, it ends up being an overall less successful project than Street Worms.
