brain hurts. i dont think he hears you milord man

Viagra Boys - Cave World

(Dance Punk, Indie Rock, New Rave)

Viagra Boys' third album is an absolutely dreadful listen. As they try to satirize alt-right conspiracism and contemporary indulgences, they lay everything on so thick and make it impossible to be interested in any of these songs. Listening to Sebastian Murphy scream talking points at you doesn't feel clever or funny: it's incredibly draining and makes it impossible for Cave World to be anything but a complete disaster.

½

My god, was this unpleasant. Look, I've never been the biggest fan of Viagra Boys' whole shtick: their comedic and in-your-face satirization of ultra-macho masculinity on last year's Welfare Jazz was about as irritating as listening to your friend's half-drunk conservative boyfriend talk for 40 minutes straight, and they've never been sharp enough songwriters to make their edgy songwriting stick with a good hook or catchy melody - I'm not sure if I'll ever understand what attracts people to them even in the slightest. But they've always had a good song here or there, where their intense instrumentals mesh well with subtler and heartier songwriting, tracks like Secret Canine Agent or Creatures that make for some of the best in their discography; it's not like they've never been able to make a good song in the past. What stuns me about Cave World, then, is just how much of a failure it is on every level: Sebastian Murphy as a performer is irritating and often flat-out unpleasant to listen to, the instrumentals range from decent to one-dimension and cruddy, and the songwriting is some of the worst I've seen in years. There is little that is charismatic or redeemable about Cave World, its attempts at satirizing the alt-right so weak and unclever that it's more akin to scrolling through a nerdy Reddit comment section than anything else. I cannot stand listening to Cave World in its entirety again. The problem with Cave World's songwriting isn't just that it's bad: it's that it's so upfront and takes so much presence in the music that its shortcomings are impossible to avoid. When Sebastian Murphy is screaming in his rough, scratchy voice about how "things would play out much different / Back in the time that we were apes" on Troglodyte or gasping with theatrical drama about vaccine conspiracies on Creepy Crawlers, his one-dimensional songwriting is better fit for a bland late night show comedy skit, so unwitty and lacking in depth that I can't imagine anyone not in on the joke being able to latch onto anything Viagra Boys are talking about here. It's also a bit bothersome to me how uninteresting a muse they find in the wild world of the alt-right: sure, it's a dangerous community whose surreal and childish views about the world have caused real-life harm in the past, they deserve all the shame in the world, but they're not interesting to sing about in the slightest. We all know toxic masculinity is bad, Murphy singing "I'm a big boy, baby, and I need something makes a dude feel real" doesn't say anything new or interesting about it; it's insufferable watching him give the most surface-level comedic impression of vaccine conspiracists on Creepy Crawlers as he name-drops adrenochrome and microchips - will these songs even be worth talking about in a year? Five years? Ten years? Nothing about Cave World feels like it was designed for longevity, the kind of album you send to your friends to say "isn't it wild they made a song called Return to Monke?" and forget about it the morning after. Instrumentally they're nothing to write home about either: they've got energy, I guess, but each song is so long and repetitive that it gets grating unfathomably quick. The two tracks I most enjoyed off the album, Baby Criminal and Ain't No Thief, go for speedier and harsher sounds that push Viagra Boys to the max and bring out some more developed songwriting from the band, but otherwise Cave World is filled with songs that either barely move past their initial groove or stick to a more midtempo sound that drags like a slug treading its way through an oil spill. Punk Rock Loser's limp guitars and basic drum groove go on for an agonizing four minutes, one of the sleepiest and nondescript indie rock songs in years, and with the following blunder of Creepy Crawlers and mushy centerpiece The Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis with its shaky falsettos and lifeless instrumentation, it's hard to call Cave World engaging on even the most basic musical aspects. It's also their cleanest sounding record to date, which oddly ends up a detriment to the album as it loses that grit that at least made for some interesting textural qualities on Welfare Jazz and their debut, the underwritten ADD and toothless Return to Monke so polished that Viagra Boys lose any sense of personality and wit in their instrumentals, Cave World never able to go any deeper than surface level. I can't for the life of me understand where the appeal of Cave World lies in the slightest: isn't there more than enough energetic, punky indie rock out there that isn't this unbearable? Cave World did not grow on me once on repeat listens; it only got more abrasive and frustrating. When piss-poor songwriting, half-decent production, and nauseating vocal performances combine into the sludgy, meme-laden mess that is Cave World, there's next to nothing I can say about it apart from how much I never want to step foot near this album again. It's boring, lacks any unique perspective on any of the issues it talks about, and is unable to bring anything more than surface-level jabs at ideas and ideologies the general public already has a distaste for. Punk is an upfront genre, but it's also a smart genre: its best artists know how to balance political rhetoric and straightforward narratives with songwriting that is energetic and personable, tackling real-world issues through their music with musical dexterity and lyrical wryness. Viagra Boys is not one of those bands, and Cave World is the absolute epitome of why that is the case. It is an obnoxious, loathsome listen that makes your 11-year old neighbor who just discovered IFunny for the first time look like a comedic genius. If there are any positives to Cave World, is that it pinpoints exactly all of my issues with Viagra Boys in one slimy, dreadful package.

what artists do you like besides fob?

cliche answer but i listen to a lot of stuff BESIDES patd/mcr/fob even though that is mostly what i listen to, my spotify is sarahy2799 if you wanna check out my playlists also heres a lot of rambling

lately ive been listening to a lot of sleaze rock/metal or whatever else adjacent music from the 70s-80s. i had a biiiig supernatural phase when i was younger so i love that type of music

ive also been listening to a lot of irritatingly mainstream/overplayed indie pop from the early-mid 2010s because that music reminds me of summer

and of course, 00s emo/pop punk/rock music, lately its been more big hits from a variety of artists though. and mcr of course since the news

whenever i work on the P+R essay i end up listening to 00s pop like ashlee simpson and the backstreet boys or whatever along with live in denver to get me in the headspace i think

i also interviewed this canadian artist named sate a bit ago and her stuff is really good

also the films' being bored ep is like the music of all time

i think my most played songs RECENTLY are billie jean by michael jackson, rock me by great white, wild side by motley crue, shake tramp by marianas trench, rebel yell by billy idol, heartbreaker by pat benatar, pink panther by scene queen, jenny by walk the moon, the future freaks me out by motion city soundtrack, pieces of me by ashlee simpson (lol), how far weve come by matchbox 20, tongue tied by grouplove, my happy ending by avril lavigne, face down by red jumpsuit apparatus, layla by derek and the dominos, and punk rock princess by something corporate, same old song and dance by aerosmith, lovegame and paparazzi by lady gaga, spit by bleach, zitti e buoni by maneskin, locust laced by sleigh bells, becky by be your own pet, local god by everclear, gabe james' cover of good 4 u, crazy on you by heart, atlantic city by the band, kill v maim by grimes, and aint nice by the viagra boys

Here’s a brief listicle trot through of the Rough Trade Albums of the Month. A mixed bag – when they were good, they were great. When they weren’t good – well, they went back to the shop (or donated to my daughter in one instance.

DIIV’s Deceiver

So in the best tradition of all of these end of year wrap-ups (and hopefully to keep you all reading), in reverse order:

12: Bat for Lashes – Lost Girls (September – click here)

Vapid and saccharine, this is one that went back to the store. I’ve heard it all before and I didn’t like it then.

11: Cigarettes After Sex – Cry (November – click here)

Why do bands do this? Take a debut album that was pretty listenable if a little shallow and make the second album sound exactly the same? If they’ve run out of things to say already, then it doesn’t bode well for the long term.

Appropriately, it only avoided being 11th by the width of a rizla and that’s only because it now resides in my daughter’s bedroom and I didn’t want to upset her by ranking them last.

10: Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (April – click here)

The penultimate “returned to sender” LP. This is a bit like last year’s Idles LP (not literally of course – bear with me here). It’s in the sense of me being out of kilter with the rest of the end of year reviews who pitched it high up their listings (and remember these are ranking all albums released in 2019, not just Rough Trade Albums of the Month) – 14th best for Pitchfork, 10th in the Guardian, 13th for Mojo, 1st in Uncut.

I found and still find it to be skillfully crafted but utterly bloodless. The Carole King/Wrecking Crew singing and arrangements are carried off with aplomb but boy does it wear me down.

9: KOKOKO! – Fongola (July – click here)

This is an album that I returned to Rough Trade a little reluctantly. I can see how if any one of these tracks of Congolese electronica popped up on a dance floor or uptempo mix, it would get the hips moving. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as a continuous LP spread over 40 minutes or so. Sorry guys.

A man from KOKOKO!

8: Mix Master Mike – Conquest (December – still to be reviewed)

I just received this in the pre-Christmas run-up and haven’t given it sufficient listening. I would say that as a thirty-minute mixtape by the turntablist pal of the Beastie Boys. At first listening, it certainly clears out the Festive cobwebs.

The more observant of you will see that I have literally drawn a line there. Everything beyond this point were keepers and I’d recommend all of them to differing degrees to certain people.

7. Viagra Boys: Street Worms (May – click here)

As I suspected at the time, the more immediate pleasures of this album have faded a little over the course of the year. Their in-store at Rough Trade was thrilling though and Sleaford Mods hooked them for a support slot. Not the worst endorsement.

Viagra Boys live at Rough Trade

5=: Pip Blom – Boat (June – click here)

The band that opened in the John Peel tent at Glastonbury. They were an absolute blast and Boat captures them sounding youthfully energetic in the studio.

Exactly what a bunch of mates and family having a blast sounds like.

5=: DIIV – Deceiver (October – click here)

As per the Pip Blom album, this isn’t breaking new ground. It’s been produced by one of the team behind My Bloody Valentine and boy, does it show. That said, it is well crafted and so far appears to bear repeat listening. Can’t separate this and the Dutch guys also at number 5.

4. Nerija – Blume (August – click here)

2019 has seen some sterling jazz albums by young British musicians – the Ezra Collective, Joe Armon-Jones, Comet Is Coming. I’m not sure that Nerija’s debut Blume is the best of the bunch but that bar is pretty high, especially when you chuck in Matthew Halsall’s stellar reissues too.

It soundtracked much of my late summer though and, with songs like Riverfest, offered a different take on the current British jazz scene.

3: Ex:Re – Ex:Re (February – click here)

This year’s slow burner. I mentioned back in February that this was an album that suited the chillier month’s of Winter and sure enough, as Autumn ended it was back on the turntable again. Elena Tonra’s debut solo record has a fragile beauty similar to that of last year’s Adrienne Lenker LP. Wrap up in your hat and gloves, find a deserted icy city street and give it a go.

2: The Delines – The Imperial (January – click here)

This was a toughie, with not much to chose between this and the next record. It has been wonderful having Amy Boone and the Delines back in 2019. Two fantastic gigs – a Rough Trade in-store and a candlelit Union Chapel, two great singles in Eight Floors Up and A Room On The Tenth Floor and the Imperial.

Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone live at Rough Trade

Ah – The Imperial.

Willy Vlautin’s vignettes of middle-aged lives resonate with this listener.  The arrangements are just gorgeous (something that it shares with my number one selection). The playing subtle. The vocals go straight to the heart. Their debut Colfax was wonderful and this one’s even better.

1: Durand Jones and The Indications – American Love Call (March – click here)

There are many similarities between this and the Delines album – the quality of the songwriting and the performances, the roots in American soul music. We’ve seen Durand and the guys three times this year – a Rough Trade in-store, as part of Nile Rodgers Meltdown Festival and at Islington Assembly Hall, and they’ve got better every time. The live shows are sensational. Durand and Aaron the drummer offer superb contrasting vocal styles, soulful and falsetto in turn. The setlists often contain surprises – a rendition of the Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down at the Queen Elizabeth Hall or a Last Waltz style encore of Dylan’s I Will Be Released in Islington.

Durand Jones and the Indications in Islington

The key reason that this gets the top slot is the sheer joy that it has brought us this year. It’s been a tough 2019. I lost my Dad to cancer. We had a protracted house sale and purchase. And there’s the rest of the world’s ills, political, environmental social.

The Indications put smiles on our faces, time and time again.

That was just what I needed.

Happy new year to all! Here's my go at ranking @RoughTrade Albums of the Month for 2019. There's a mix of some good stuff to follow tomorrow and then some more 2019 highlights. Enjoy! Here's a brief listicle trot through of the Rough Trade Albums of the Month. A mixed bag - when they were good, they were great.

NOS Primavera Sound 2019: printable timetables, our preview and playlist

It doesn’t matter how conservative or liberal you are: people are naturally resistant to change, especially if the previous form of what’s changing was so dear to them. We get it: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Judging by the tone and content of most comments we can find online about this year’s Primavera lineup, both in Porto and Barcelona, folks ain’t happy about “the new normal”. Yes, some of the biggest pop artists in the planet have claimed most of the spots with the big font in it. Yes, there’s a shortage of loud, extreme music we often found at the long gone ATP stage, and every year there are less and less historical, cult indie rock bands reforming for a Primavera performance. But, other than that - tiny specks on a lineup of over 120 bands in Barcelona and over 60 in Porto - has it really changed that much? Is the Primavera DNA gone? (Was there really a “Primavera DNA” to begin with?)

We don’t think so. In this year's preview of NOS Primavera Sound, we’re looking back on our ten years of going to Primavera festivals (since our debut in Barcelona 2009, we only missed it in 2011). We identify five pillars of what we think makes a typical Primavera lineup - and reflect on what’s new and what’s missing. In the end, we can say we’re actually more excited for this years’ edition than we’ve been in the past three or four years. 

Our preview playlist (which you can find below) features 33 artists, and we tried our best not to include the very obvious ones. 

Download the timetables (always subject to change): Regular PDF / Mobile PDF / Customisable Excel file

The historical indie rock bunch (and a couple of reunions) 

This lineup has got Built to Spill performing “Keep it Like a Secret” (Thursday, 19:50). It’s automatically good just for that reason, even if it was a late addition after a cancellation. It’s got the first ever Guided by Voices performance in the Iberian Peninsula (Saturday, 20:45) and a rare appearance by cult hero Liz Phair (Friday, 22:00). It’s got Low still fresh out of their most lauded album release of the past fourteen years (Saturday, 23:20). What about reunions? We get it, everyone expects so much of a festival where bands like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive or Pavement have first performed after long periods of retirement. Stereolab (Thursday, 23:20) were one of the most inventive, genre-defining and influential bands of the 90s and return to the stage after a ten year hiatus, and the Basque band Lisabö (Friday, 19:15), who has released in 2018 their first album in eight years, was once one of the most powerful post-rock/hardcore bands in Europe. And, you know... the real reason why we never, ever miss a single NOS Primavera Sound edition is the fact that it’s the most likely place in Europe to be able to witness a rare sighting of the best live band in rock music. Let’s all raise a toast to Shellac (Friday, 21:00). If they weren’t in the lineup, yes, we would think Primavera is gone. But, as long as Albini, Trainer and Weston are with us, can we really say the festival is not what it used to be?

Up-and-coming indie singer-songwriters 

Some of them we’ve seen and talked extensively before on our NOS Primavera Sound and Vodafone Paredes de Coura previews. Courtney Barnett (Friday, 19:50) played for a half-empty tent before we all hit the jackpot with her debut LP and was one of our biggest highlights of that year. Lucy Dacus (Saturday, 18:50) and Big Thief (Saturday, 19:15) played two of our favorite shows at last year’s Vodafone Paredes de Coura. They’re both competing for our attention this year, along with Tomberlin (Saturday, 19:00), who is also playing in the same time slot and appeals to the same fanbase, which makes us a bit sad to miss the others. Even if we think this was a scheduling mistake, it’s still an indicator of how good this lineup is. And you’ve still got Snail Mail (Saturday, 20:30), hopefully with a full band, when you’re done with the gig of your choice. Just before Barnett on Friday we’ve got two songwriters who released two of the most exciting albums of 2019 so far. We have missed Aldous Harding (Friday, 17:45) every time we had the chance to see her (either due to cancellations or her being placed in tiny venues in festivals) and we’ll try not to fuck it up this time around. We'll probably skip Nilüfer Yanya (Friday, 18:50) since we’ve seen her play with her band in a tiny anarchist venue less than a month ago, but you shouldn’t. And, if you don’t care about Jarvis Cocker (sacrilege) don’t miss the only male songwriter in this list: the Canadian songwriter MorMor (Thursday, 21:25) has released a superb EP earlier this month.

Unique, experimental-ish contemporary artists

There’s always space on a Primavera lineup for some of the best performers we’ve been seeing in the past few years that don’t really fit in any big boxes. Synth-heavy Let’s Eat Grandma (Thursday, 23:45) is not only the best band name in the lineup, it’s one of the most exciting new acts coming out of England in the past few years. Spoken word queen Kate Tempest (Saturday, 22:30) is debuting her new album ahead of its release later in June and shall compete for your attention with Tirzah (Saturday, 22:00) and Rosalía (Saturday, 22:10), the hottest artist out of Spain in God knows how long. Later on, Swedish singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry (Saturday, 23:30) presents her much lauded recent LP Broken Politics. Experimental rock outfit Jambinai **(Friday, 18:00) are known for using traditional folk Korean instruments to produce some of the sharpest sounding post-rock these days, while Shabaka Hutchings brings four drummers to his Sons of Kemet XL** (Friday, 20:20) jazztravaganza.

Nobody’s taking your guitars away

Playing a bit softer or harder, we’ve already listed tons of guitar music above. Yes, there’s less heavy music than a few years ago, but was that really ever a defining quality of a Primavera lineup? Still, besides all the indie rock bands we mentioned before there are a few more options for guitar-heavy partying, from returning experimental-ish hardcore behemoths Fucked Up (Friday, 22:15) to upcoming Aussie punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers (Saturday, 21:00). Although very different from each other, Hop Along (Saturday, 17:45) and Viagra Boys (Saturday, 18:00) will compete for your attention in the beginning of the last day of the festival.

The indie/alternative big guns

You wouldn’t set up a 30,000 capacity festival where the headliners are six indie singer-songwriters with two records under their belt since 2016, right? We know we wouldn’t even though that’s basically half of what we listen to. Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker is back with his new project JARV IS (Thursday, 21:00), which is apparently “primarily a live experience”, mostly limited to festivals. We don’t know what to expect and we don’t want to read about it beforehand. Can we still be surprised sometimes, is that too much to ask? It’s been over a decade since we last were excited about anything related to Interpol **(Friday, 23:45), but reports from Barcelona and All Points East tell us at least 2/3 of the setlist is composed of Antics and Turn On the Bright Lights songs, so there’s that. Later that night, **James Blake (Friday, 01:00) is back with a new album that we didn’t care to listen to, but we thought his past two concerts we saw in festivals were way more interesting than his records, so we’ll probably give him a shot. On Saturday we witness a rare European show by Jorge Ben Jor (Saturday 19:50), the MPB giant who rarely performs outside Brazil, before the neo soul queen Erykah Badu (Saturday, 00:30) takes the stage as the closing big act of the festival.

The new normal

Yes, something changed at NOS Primavera Sound over the past couple of years. But did it change for worse? This was a festival that, despite running until the early hours of the morning, lacked an electronic dance music programme that was as consistent as its daylight and prime-time programme. This has changed last year with the introduction of new stage Bits, and has considerably improved this years when it comes to DJs. Yaeji (Thursday, 03:00) has released some of the most non-obvious house hits since 2017. Together with Peggy Gou **(Thursday, 01:30), **Helena Hauff (Friday, 04:30), SOPHIE (Friday, 02:30) and JASSS (Friday, 00:00), the Korean-American producer and DJ is the flagbearer of an experimental, female-fronted, fresh sounding clubbing scene that not so long ago was pretty much nonexistent in Primavera. Producer Yves Tumor (Saturday, 01:00) brings another side of the same scene with his full band; Modeselektor (Saturday, 23:45) are hardly newcomers and have performed in countless editions of Primavera, both as Modeselektor and Moderat. 

But maybe that’s not the addition of a good clubbing programme with a stage dedicated to clubbers that’s really bothering a seemingly substantial part of Primavera’s typical festival goers. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the big slots in the lineup - even though those represent only 10% of the festival’s lineup - are occupied by big, guitarless, not-really-indie acts. But can we really rule them out and say they’re not “Primavera artists” based on their (lack of) artistic merit? Of course not. It’s been seven years since Solange (Thursday, 00:30) has released “Losing You” and stopped being referred to as simply “Beyoncé’s younger sister”; we are yet to find a bad review for her latest two albums. Hip-hop ends up being underrepresented this year, compared to past editions, with the likes of Danny Brown (22:20), Tommy Cash (23:25) and Allen Halloween (22:15) all competing for your attention Thursday night, and newcomer ProfJam (Friday, 17:00) getting an extra early slot the next day. But what’s really grinding people’s gears is the presence of one of the most important artists in the world today. Colombian J Balvin (Friday, 22:15) is one of the most important regaetón singers today, and, through his many collaborations with English-speaking artists, played an instrumental role as the genre definitely took over Western audiences and became the most popular genre of pop music worldwide, toppling the long dominance of hip hop, R&B and EDM. Literally every song on his setlist is a major hit. All killer, no filler. Can you really say the same about any other artist in the lineup (except Shellac, of course)? Name one.

Our playlist this year has 66 songs by 33 artists. We couldn’t make it shorter, it’s still impossible to see all those artists, and we could definitely add some more. Do you still think this is a subpar lineup? It’s not.