08.01.21

Nobody’s ever called Viagra Boys polished. The gruff charm of their 2018 debut was multiplied tenfold in their rough-and-tumble live shows, and songs like Sports – a blokey barrage of meats and, well, sports – were supremely fun, extremely unsubtle piss-takes of modern masculinity. But their return with Welfare Jazz marks a richer sound for the Stockholm six piece: a series of retro skits, broader genre-experimentation, and bolder production from a raft of indie legends have plumped up Viagra Boys’ previously lean song-writing.

Blending an earnest DIY hardcore sensibility with a nihilist streak, the country twang that American-born vocalist Sebastian Murphy dipped into on earlier material has grown into a full, troubadour swagger. Sometimes it’s electrifying: the roar that kicks off the stomp of I Feel Alive is as thrilling as a plunge pool. But on bluesy, faux-braggadocious songs like Toad, the sting’s taken out: on the surface, another “rock’n’roll rebel” song as clichéd as this description.

Still, the band shine on Secret Canine Agent and 6 Shooter, tracks that rip up the group’s blueprint but could still set a grubby basement venue on fire. Perhaps best of all, though, is a cover of the late great John Prine’s In Spite of Ourselves. It rudders the whole record: Viagra Boys have never been about big statements, or being “important”, but it encapsulates what they are trying to say on Welfare Jazz about the silly, horny, sloppy human condition.

Katie Hawthorne