Review of viagr aboys by Viagra Boys
Viagr aboys, brought to you by Shrimptech Enterprises, presents a new collection of wonderful, realistic and totally not loose poems about us all being humans made of meat, taking care of your health through a scientifically proven pyramid scheme, and something about dogs and horses.
I remember being an itty bitty tiny teenager when they first came to the Netherlands. Back in 2018 they decided to enlighten us people of the lower countries about worms and research chemicals. Man, did they give a show, all for about 200 people in Stroomhuis Eindhoven. It awoke something in me, seeing Sebastian drink so much they had to carry him out whilst the saxophonist at that time tried to distract us with a 15 minute solo. It was wonderful. It really was my first interaction with the alternative strain of music and I haven’t looked back since.
“I’m a little bit gross on stage like I do a lot of puking and a lot of touching myself and sexualising myself in a weird way” – Sebastian Murphy, Clash Magazine.
A lot has happened since. The release of their debut album Street Worms, the tragic loss of their guitarist Benjamin Vallé, the release of Welfare Jazz in 2021 on which Vallé played for the final time. Two wonderful Shrimp Sessions, Cave World arriving mid-covid which they used as the whole theme of the record. And those 200 people in Stroomhuis somehow became 6000 at AFAS, the same shrimp loving lunatics multiplied by thirty. Now in 2025 their wonderfully named viagr aboys hit the store (policy).
Viagr aboys opens by dropping you straight into the bog with “Man Made of Meat”, a song catchy enough to convert the most non-shrimp-believing troglodytes. Street Worms had Sports, Welfare Jazz had Ain’t Nice, Cave World had Punk Rock Loser. Man Made of Meat is pure Shrimp-Crack. This is the one song I could actually share with colleagues without them looking at me like I was speaking some long lost shrimpian language.
“They watch TV, they watch TV about a man named Chandler Bing
Who died in a freak hot tubbing accident
And spent his time drinking hot dog flavored water
On a popular TV show called Tub Girls”
Many bands trade their original tone for something more catchy, but that’s not the case with Man Made of Meat. The Matthew Perry reference doesn’t mock him, it uses him to jab at the “overweight freaks ride around on wheelchairs” types watching the news about him from their couches. It’s all absurd and out of pocket, luckily not edgy but just close enough to have that flavour of I don’t give a shit. But the lyrics only make it iconic, the actual catchiness comes from the band supporting Sebastian Murphy’s crazy ranting. The standout is Henrik “Benke” Höckert, the de facto bandleader Murphy credits with keeping the whole thing from falling apart, always playing a dirty distorted bass that’s a bit simple but very consistent.
“Seb’s girlfriend had become obsessed with one in particular, known as The Bockstensmannen, even visiting a Swedish museum and posing for photos with a reconstruction of him. Seb got his own back by writing Bog Body, a revenge love song about falling for a different pickled corpse, complete with perfect skin and a dainty nose. A true punk rock love story” – Manchester’s Finest
I mean, how fucking funny is that origin story. Sebastian’s inspiration for “The Bog Body” is literally him being jealous about his girlfriend’s obsession with the Bockstensmannen. Normal jealousy songs are about catching your loved one cheating or losing the spark, nah, not for Murphy. His girlfriend got obsessed with homeboy who’s already been dead for a couple of thousand years.
“I just love that little guy so much. His name is actually Uno II because he had a brother named Uno. I don’t know, I just felt like he deserved a song, and I’m always drawn to little critters, you know. I like to picture things from their perspective. I often think about what it would be like to be a shrimp or a dog” – Sebastian Murphy, Clash Magazine.
From jealousy about a pickled corpse to something way more wholesome. Uno II was written by Murphy entirely from the perspective of a dog, specifically his own dog Uno II, who he loved so much the little guy got his own song on the self-titled album. It opens with a gong and then the whole band pulls back. Bass and drums sit on one steady tone, leaving the flute room to lead, and that flute is what makes Uno II stand apart from everything else on the record. It honestly took me a few listens to really like it. Used to the chaotic energy Viagra Boys normally bring, Uno II sounded too quiet at first, but the lyrics are some of Murphy’s best. We actually found out the vocal track works as an overlay on almost any song, try it out!
“I think there was a point in writing the record where I’m like, I haven’t mentioned shrimp once. I’ve got to mention a shrimp somewhere. And then I went back and I rewrote Pyramid of Health completely just so I could get in that line about the big shrimp in the sky. But that song, it was about some complete other shit in the beginning. I probably rewrote that song six or seven times. I was so fucking tired of that song, and I told the guys, I do not want that song anywhere near this record.” – Sebastian Murphy, The Needle Drop.
I really want to take a visit inside Sebastian’s brain, because rewriting a whole song just to fit in “big shrimp in the sky” means you are either a marketing genius or you forgot to take your silly-brain medicine. Either way, that’s how Pyramid of Health was born. Though the lyrics were all built around the big shrimp, the actual meaning of the song is genuinely topical. It takes jabs at what Murphy called “people that should probably go to therapy for a few years, but they would instead just go meet a shaman.” It’s painfully accurate, and although the lyrics may seem far gone with “The world we live in isn’t shaped like a sphere, it’s the shape of a pyramid, or so I learned,” it’s scarily close to how people would rather believe something they found through ChatGPT or Google than listen to somebody who has actually studied for 20+ years.
“I grew up in San Rafael, California, and I was there visiting a few years ago. I was outside of my buddy’s house smoking cigarettes and this whole gang of meth heads just biked past. There was 12 of them, and some of them had bikes on their backs. And my buddy Moose was like, oh, dude, that’s the Dirty Boyz. And I’m like, what? Who are the Dirty Boyz? And he’s like, yeah, man, it’s his gang, man. And they steal all this shit.” – Sebastian Murphy, The Needle Drop.
Researching this album shocked me with how much of it came straight from Murphy’s life, even when it all sounds invented. Take Dirty Boyz. Sounds like Murphy strung together a funny phrase, but it’s a real gang that rode around meth’d up stealing bikes. Murphy kept the gang and twisted the rest into a horror story: get caught by the Dirty Boyz and they turn you into one of them. Honestly, somebody fund the film. Meth’d up zombies with gasoline for blood, riding through an apocalypse, dragging strangers off the street to join the gang. Shoutout to “they collect a bunch of useless fucking shit.” That “useless” does so much work, making the whole lyric comical and alive.
“Hey baby, can I borrow your car? I wanna drive into a wall and make us two-dimensional”
Funnily enough, the song called “Medicine for Horses” is the most emotional and raw performance by Sebastian Murphy. It’s also the first song where we actually hear Murphy singing properly, having to find a different part of his voice for it. The track is deeply depressing but still romantic, balancing on the edge of self-destruction and revalidation. It switches from “go ahead, break my neck,” which is obviously not good for you, to “I need to pay a guy to get my pineal gland recalcified.” I had to look it up in the Shrimpedia: the pineal gland produces melatonin, which helps you sleep. So that line actually sounds like he’s trying to improve his situation. He’s still deciding whether to end it all or keep trying, but the one thing that stays consistent is his love for his wife: “Kiss my wife, tell her I love her, tell her she was the only thing that made me stop thinking ‘bout the great plains of North America.” Now tell me that ain’t romantic.
“Remember that dude who looked like a raisin dressed up to go to a party?”
“Waterboy” is the first song on the album that doesn’t come with a deeper story attached. It’s a fun Viagra Boys song but doesn’t compete with what comes before or after. Instrumentally it’s the same story, a fun but bland bassline and that’s honestly about it. A weaker note on an overall strong album.
“I know a dude who knows a dude who knows a dude”
Another song that fits the Viagra Boys sound to perfection. Store Policy has those Viagra Boys dirty basslines, lyrics that either mention shrimps or hint at evil things he did to get the ingredients for his perpetual stew, most likely a nod to stealing from stores, with small effects like a police siren adding to it all. It’s a track that has very mixed reviews from critics and the dude that knows a dude who knows a dude. But I love the instrumentals and the Viagra wall of sound this track builds. It’s one of those songs that creates a moshpit within the first second it starts. I honestly think it is one of the most underrated tracks on the record.
“I can make your girl stop what she’s doin’ and turn around and watch me do my little dance”
The back half of the album has less going for it when we talk about deeper meanings or actual stories, but it does showcase the strength of Viagra Boys. Funny lyrics like Murphy bragging about his interesting facts, the last Japanese soldier surrendering in 1998 or the bear that fought in the Polish army, all facts that happen to align with my personal enjoyment of facts that most girls don’t give a fuck about. It’s a song with some of the weirdest bragging you will ever hear.
“I think it’s more that we just wrote that song and we always want there to be a loose instrumental song in most of the records. That ended up being the one. Then I was just thinking about names for it and I’m like, oh, it’s fan service to call it Best in Show Pt. IV as well. Yeah, I think our fans really like seeing the repetitive things”
When talking about Viagra Boys it’s always very easy to start only talking about Sebastian Murphy, which this review has been guilty of as well, and it does make sense because the band is just one big foundation for Murphy to have his mental breakdown on. The band themselves know this, so live shows always get a longer version of “Research Chemicals” with Sebastian either stepping back to let the band improvise for a full 10 minutes or ranting about whatever comes to mind, like bitterballen being a conspiracy. “Best in Show Pt. IV” is just that but performed in the studio. Murphy does some ranting about ayahuasca or whatever, but the main focus is the band jamming. Saxophonist Oskar Carls finally gets the front stage, I can already see him in his iconic short pants going off in the studio. Elias Jungqvist, the synthesiser master, is always there too. The amount of crazy effects this guy gets out of his synth is insanity, try recreating just one. It’s a fun energetic finale before the smaller piano song that rounds up the album.
“I’m 35 and I don’t really feel young anymore, and I think it’s probably good for me that I don’t feel young anymore.” – Sebastian Murphy, DIY Magazine.
River King is a great album closer in concept. Murphy sounds like his drugs are finally wearing off and he’s settling into peace instead of his standard ranting. The song fades out into ambient restaurant chatter, the sound of a casual night out, which is a genuinely strange and tender production choice. In execution though, it stretches Murphy’s vocals further than they want to go. The screeching and screaming style, not to forget the alcohol and smoking, has taken a real toll on his voice. It’s a song I would compare to “Worms” in mood, the meaning and contrast land but the vocal performance is where Viagra Boys struggle.
How would I describe viagr aboys? Well, it’s as if a best in show horse stomped on my body made out of meat whilst I was too focused playing UNO bog body edition with two of my dirty Boyz, and that weird waterboy dude, or river king, or whatever his fucking name was, was trying to scam me with some pyramid of health bullshit saying you N33D ME to save you.
No but for real, I really love this album for what it does. It’s unhinged, it looks at life through whatever coloured tinted glasses Murphy has on, and it shows great original musicianship. Is it perfect? Not really. There are some songs that could have used more substance and after a few listens it becomes repetitive. But I love that Viagra Boys have been creating some of the weirdest music of the early 2020s and I hope they keep the tempo up.
Album Artwork
Cover art by Leo Park, Colin Smight, Sebastian Murphy
When you have Sebastian Murphy in the band, you have to make the album cover work. For context, Murphy is a tattoo artist by trade, with some of his work shown on earlier albums like Street Worms and on the inner sleeve and additional artwork of viagr aboys. Leo Park accepted this challenge and pulled it off masterfully.
A Stockholm-based painter, Park created a surreal portrait of Murphy, easily recognisable by the lös tattoo on his forehead. He was inspired by a character Murphy had drawn himself, which Park called a "devilish elf-like character," and many experienced listeners might have already spotted the bigger influence: Sonic Youth's 1992 album Dirty, the one with the worn stuffed animal on the cover. It has the same white strokes on both sides, with the text balanced the exact same way. Park even managed to work the hero of the story, the shrimp, into the painting by placing it on Sebastian's neck.
The little hat on Murphy, the textured surface, the colour palette, it all makes this a must-have for your physical collection.
For the graphic design, a very funny detail. The album was intended as a self-titled LP, but in order to make the cover art symmetrical, the band's name got chopped into viagr aboys. The weird spacing comes from a design constraint, the painting needed symmetry. First time I can think of an album name being changed to fit the design. Man, I wish I had these kinds of clients in my personal experience.
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