Make no mistake, Viagra Boys are laughing with you.

The Swedish six-piece came out swinging last year with the release of their debut, Street Worms, on Stockholm-based label YEAR0001. The label also happens to be home to Yung Lean, one of the country’s most notable rap music exports, but Viagra Boys exist on a whole other level. Viagra Boys are the antithesis of Swedish perfection.

In a time where UK post punk acts like Idles and Shame are gaining international attention via the Spotify wasteland, Viagra Boys exist more as a commentary on the futility of hardcore music to make any sort of change. Instead of blue-collar working class fight songs, they’re more likely to rip a line of coke and mock the world from the outside with their driving rhythms and intellectual social observations.

“It has a lot to do with how I try to look at myself,” says frontman Sebastian Murphy, on the phone from Warsaw, Poland, between bites of his truck stop chicken sandwich. “I try to not take myself too serious. Even though I deal with a lot of serious issues in my life, I think some of the best ways to deal with these things is to laugh at them in a way and turn them into a little bit of comedy.”

When prodded further on the serious issues to which he’s referring, Murphy cites drug addiction as an immediate example. “I think drug addiction is a good example because it’s really fun but it’s also really not fun. Which is a bit like our music, it’s fun but it’s pretty dark also.”

Calling their band Viagra Boys is a statement in and of itself, a stiff middle finger to toxic masculinity and oppressive patriarchal systems; as opposed to the immature drug-induced boner-popping that a flip side impression might lend itself to.

“At first when we started out, we were maybe a little bit worried that we were called Viagra Boys and it could be misinterpreted, but we made it pretty clear from the beginning that we’re all feminists and anti-racists. We just try to be nice,” he says. “But now I don’t think we’re thinking about that too much. I think we’re pretty secure about ourselves.”

Viagra Boys are a professional punk band masquerading as shitheads, carrying the torch for a new sound that recalls elements of ESG and Fun House-era Stooges with 2019 sensibilities. They’re a serious band but they know how to fuck with people in all the right ways.

Take the first single from the band’s debut, “Sports,” where Murphy talk-sings his way through a laundry list of pseudo machismo nonsense, “Baseball, basketball, wiener dogs, short shorts — sports.” You get the idea. On another track, the mesmerizing “Just Like You,” Murphy distills dystopian fantasies while unpacking the American fever dream and wrestling with his own inner demons.

“I try not to be too hard on myself because I’ve been in situations in my life that were much worse,” Murphy says. “Before I started the band I was way more into heavy stuff, pretty much every day and actually needed it to survive. But now I’m just trying to have a good time.”