When you name your band something like Viagra Boys, you are automatically offering people a love-it-or-hate-it prospect. But for those who bought in, the band delivered an impressive 2018 debut called Street Worms, a collection of skronking and chaotic post-punk. If you happened to catch them live, you already know the band could take those songs and make them feel like a party and an apocalypse at the same time. And today, it turns out we’re getting the next gnarled document of Viagra Boys’ worldview.

This morning, Viagra Boys surprise released a new EP called Common Sense. It features four new tracks, and comes with lyric videos for each. A press release describes the song “Common Sense” as “a glimpse of things to come from the band later this year,” so maybe the EP is just the beginning of a new Viagra Boys chapter.

But for now, the four new songs capture different sides of Viagra Boys’ personality. “Common Sense” picks up where “Just Like You” left off, a more anxious and atmospheric direction, with frontman Sebastian Murphy singing “Why can’t I have a little common sense/ Why don’t I realize that I might end up dead?” The whole song grapples with self-destructive patterns, but elsewhere the band delves back into — or perhaps wrangles with — their nihilistic aesthetic. In “Sentinel Island,” Murphy has lots of heroin and Fentanyl on him; on “Lick The Bag,” he proclaims “There’s some more fun to be had/ If you lick the bag.” On first listen though, it’s the title track that really stands out, hinting at an ever-so-slightly changed Viagra Boys.

Stream the whole EP via Spotify or lyric videos for each track below.

TOUR DATES:
11/10 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
11/11 – Birmingham, UK @ The Mill
11/12 – London, UK @ 02 Forum
11/13 – Manchester, UK @ The Ritz
11/14 – Dublin, IE @ 02 Academy
11/16 – Glasgow, UK @ Queen Margaret Union
11/17 – Newcastle, UK @ NUSU Basement
11/18 – Liverpool, UK @ Invisible Wind Factory
11/19 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
11/22 – Lille, FR @ L’Aéronef
11/24 – Lyon, FR @ Le Transbordeur
11/27 – Paris, FR @ Trabdeno
11/28 – Cologne, DE @ Kantine
11/29 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
11/30 – Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefährlich
12/01 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
12/02 – Leipzig, DE @ Conne Island
12/04 – Warsaw, PL @ Praga Centrum
12/07 – Aarhus, DK @ Atlas
12/08 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset
12/09 – Gothenburg, SE @ Pustervik
12/10 – Stockholm, SE @ Fållan
12/11 – Malmö, SE @ Plan B
12/12 – Oslo, NO @ Vulkan
12/15 – Helsinki, FI @ On The Rocks

CREDIT: Fredrik Bengtsson

The Common Sense EP is out now.