Viagra Boys

Born out of Stockholm’s alternative scene in the mid‑2010s, Swedish outfit Viagra Boys developed a gritty post‑punk that draws equally from punk rock and noise rock. Centered on American singer Sebastian Murphy, who is based in Sweden, the band first gained attention through a series of EPs released from 2016, revealing a sound driven by a repetitive rhythm section, a very prominent saxophone and a half‑spoken, half‑sung vocal delivery with ironic lyrics—often focused on constructions of masculinity, social excesses and everyday urban life. The release of the album Street Worms in 2018 marked an initial milestone, followed by Welfare Jazz in 2021, which broadened the group’s palette with stronger touches of groove and occasional forays into country‑adjacent or skewed pop forms, and then Cave World in 2022, where Viagra Boys emphasized contrasts between post‑punk tension and almost danceable motifs. Frequent tours across Europe and North America gradually established Viagra Boys on club and festival stages, while the band endured the disappearance of their guitarist Benjamin Vallé in 2021 without breaking the collective momentum started in Stockholm.