The Bug Club : Every Single Muscle
Self-deprecating Brits, huh. We do love to parody ourselves, prodding at our awkwardness and optimistic denial that everything’s fine (which it obviously is, and always has been). But when it comes to observant musicians using razor-sharp wit to address our bumbling societal weirdness, there’s always the danger that one small slip can tip an act into comedy music realms. One act that does get the balance right, though, is Monmouthshire’s charming and modestly preposterous duo The Bug Club.
Their appeal comes in droves across what seems like the gazillionth (fifth) album they’ve released thus far, the next from their high-quality, industrious production line. Every Single Muscle feels a brawnier cousin of Very Human Features before it, where Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris deliver a breathless pile-up of body-based garage rock slammers, buoyed by inventive licks and a throwaway style that mocks their consistent songwriting leaps. Humor’s always been one of the band’s selling points, with characterful instrumentals managing to swerve the occasional novelty value of the lyrics; exactly where the cut-and-paste gamut of noughties’ indie bands fell short. The band’s expanding palette to sound like Sparks (“Cut to Black”), Minutemen (“Full Range of Motion”), or Sabbath-plays-Delta blues (“Shiny and Wet”) goes a long way to channel earnestness alongside the usual piss-taking they cannot stop themselves from doing.
From the swole cover sleeve, and being promoted as the band’s own take on body horror, you could easily imagine the band crafting ditties about Sainsbury’s workers turning into latex monsters straight out of Possession. “Shiny and Wet” does reveal “I want to see your organs,” to be fair, and fittingly, the tracks delve into as much familiar human feeling as they do surreal nonsense, à la Cronenberg. Opener “Miss Wales 2012” laughs at the misplaced devotion granted to winners of a beauty competition, while “Make It Count” recounts a tale of sexual embarrassment. Otherwise, as on “My Uncle Warren Drives A Passat”, Willmett’s main gripe is feeling jealous of a greyhound’s member.
Undoubtedly, the grim black comedy and obsession with death ramps up throughout the course. At one point, they ask the age-old philosophical question “we’ve never seen your penis, so how can we be friends?”, before chucking it out there that “I missed the episode when everybody dies!” “Watching the Omnibus”—ironically the shortest cut here, with a wicked little riff—imagines cozying up to a dead lover for a stream of soap opera reruns. Despite its morbid title, “A Good Day for Dying” is a romp featuring what is perhaps the world’s first pre-announced one second guitar solo.
In the track “It’s Our Manager David”, Willmett and Harris discuss getting called by their poor manager (David) to quit being lazy. Of course, they’re joking, shrugging aside their feverish ability to peddle 18 grin-inducing tracks that manage to straddle imposter syndrome, cute love stories, skin being peeled off, and Debenhams. Getting to the nitty gritty of the human condition feels reserved for the Complete Works of Shakespeare, but The Bug Club do a good job of trying, soberly weighing up being “bored of being human” while also doing a choice sendup of primetime Kaiser Chiefs (“In My Short Life”) and never really getting to the bottom of anything. None of us do anyway, not even Big Bill himself. So just laugh at the state of it all with this record as accompaniment. It’ll do you good.
Label: Sub Pop
Year: 2026
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