When
Viagra Boys first crept into the public consciousness with their 2016 EP
Consistency of Energy, they sounded like an open affront to public decency in the grand punk rock tradition, a bunch of Swedish noisemakers with a (seemingly) addled American on lead vocals as they ground out purposefully sleazy bass-heavy grooves, skronky guitars, and bleating saxophones as paeans to questionable behavior hovered above it all. There was a brilliant primitivism in the group's early work, yet
Viagra Boys are smart enough to know they could only remake that first EP so many times, and 2022's
Cave World shows just how much intelligence, imagination, and craft they can put into their music and still get up people's noses. While the opener, "Baby Criminal," should reassure fans that this band still sounds as messed-up as ever, most of
Cave World leans more heavily on electronics than past efforts. "Troglodyte" sounds like a love letter to
Devo, the low-tech rhythm machines and synthesizers of "Creepy Crawlers" are a superb match for the song's heavyweight paranoia, "Big Boy" is funk filtered through a three-day hangover (with
Jason Williamson of
Sleaford Mods joining in on the queasy fun), and "Return to Monke"'s mix of clean electronics and dirty everything else is a brilliant evocation of the band's fusion of grubby fun and uncomfortable introspection. Most of
Cave World was written while
Viagra Boys were waiting out the lockdowns imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the isolation gave the band plenty of time to think about a world full of paranoia, conspiracy theories, fractured communication, and the general level of entropy consuming the global culture. If this falls a bit short of feeling like a thoughtful commentary on troubled times, it makes clear these guys know things are messed up, they don't quite know what to do about that, and they're just a little freaked out. Which is to say, musically, technically, and philosophically
Cave World is a world away from the band that recorded "Research Chemicals" or "Sports," and they've added some brain power without losing their strength. ~ Mark Deming
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